#but aren't willing to act on it

[fromtheseventhhell]

Every time I see people talk about Sansa and Arya's relationship as "just sisters being sisters" I think about that one girl on TikTok who was basically stalking her sister who went no-contact and kept responding to comments criticizing her with "it's just a sister thing, you wouldn't get it". Like! Being shitty to someone isn't okay just cause you're related to them. Personally thinking a certain behavior is normal/harmless does not mean the person affected by it feels the same way! Arya being mocked and having self-esteem issues is referenced often throughout the story, all the way into ADwD. How people read that (jk I know you guys don't actually read her chapters) and think their issues will magically disappear is beyond me. "Stark sisters lover" but the only time you talk about them is when you're centering Sansa and her feelings 🤨

[evilkitten3]

i have a lot of thoughts on fandoms and treatment of female characters but i do not seem to have the words to put said thoughts into. frustrating.

[skys-haunted]

the current days of mischief situation isn’t abt cosmetics really. its about the history of dodgy communication and sketchy behavior from That Game Company towards its playerbase

[unproduciblesmackdown]

also tbt but shoutout to the way this one tweet of mine got these Likes trickling in from randos, dunno why this one in particular but win that it was one that outright says Autistic. and taylor mason loyalist / understander

truly in this and any other glimpses it's o7 & warms my heart that there's other absolute randos who are Nonplussed about billions re: winston, that is, they too understand him as a person in the world of the story & from that perspective respond to material like "uh"

[nerdish-nostalgia-revived]

"You know, in the theatre we have to examine the internal logic of all our actions."

Sir Charles Cartwright playing detective.

[jinhyun]

.

[assortedvillainvault]

Disney Villain Polycule Posts Part 4 - DV'Cule SQUAD UP

Holy shit welcome to over 1500 words of actual prose becuase the muse has a glock to my head and won't take no for an answer. This is the first time I've written actual prose since I graduated...three years ago?! MAN. DV'Cule stops for nobody.

Mal's been snubbed politically, and her partners assemble to plan VENGANCE. Enjoy! Under a cut because jesus christ I'm not going to kill your dashboards like that.

“You’re kidding me.”

Jafar shifted in place, eyes locked somewhere in the dark beyond the Underworld throne room. “No.”

“You. Are kidding me.”

“Hades. I like to think I wouldn’t attempt to frame this as something so trivial as a joke.”

Said God of the Dead made to roll his eyes, but Jafar could see the way they kept flicking over to the darkness he himself was trying so intently to parse. He hoped a Cthonic God could see further into it than him.

“I just- what purpose does that serve, y’anno??” He gestured wildly as he spoke, and Jafar can’t help the habitual appreciation for Hades’ long, thin, expressive hands even as most of his energy is aimed toward attempting to fix the situation they’d been dumped into this morning. “It’s so cliché! It’s a repeat so stupid even Snoring Beauty wouldn’t have thought of it! I just- Just- What the hell was the aim here??!”

A cold draft and echoing breath comes from the stairs to their right. “The aim is of no importance.”

They turn toward the Horned King as he ascends the final steps, the foot of his robe sodden with Styx water. “The intent was to insult and it was...successful. What matters-” Jafar narrowed his eyes as bits of charred fur fall from the back of the matted stole. “-is how we move forward from here.”

“Well we know that!” Hades huffed and threw himself onto the raised dais of a throne, snapping his fingers for a flame so the King could begin drying off. A small ‘hmm’ of thanks came from the lich’s chest as he began to gently steam.

Jafar takes the moment to take a deep breath in and out, turning from the window. He makes contact with the King’s eye sockets and finds he can’t even muster up the energy for their usual biting commentary. By Allah, what a day. “...How is she?”

His Majesty sighed. “I suspect it is worse than we initially thought.” Both god and sorcerer suppressed a wince. “She had already destroyed several chambers by the time I was able to reach her. By the time I did she would not acknowledge me, nor respond verbally.”

“Fantastic.” Jafar rubbed at his temples, feeling a migraine coming on.

“...She also seemed to be stuck between forms.”

“Well Shit.”

“Language.” He can’t stop the reprimand before it slips out, an incredible sticking point from being forced to help raise a bratty little princess that made his teeth grind.

Luminous yellow eyes narrowed. “Fuck the Mouse and Fuck You, this is my home and I’ll swear when I feel it’s appropriate. Which is now!” Hades flame roared orange for a brief moment before smoothing back to blue. Jafar doesn’t miss how it remained several feet down his arms and robes.

He feels the fizz of magic under his suddenly forked tongue and makes the effort to swallow it down before he starts spitting venom in the literal sense. No need for that towards his allies. Lovers. Confidants. All of that and whichever.

Hades finally takes notice of the burnt back of the King’s robes. His eyes widen. “Fuck. She, uh, she didn’t..?”

Jafar knows that that is as far as any of them are willing to ask, but holds his breath anyway.

He can’t describe the relief when the King started shaking his head almost immediately. “No, no this was...” he grimaces. “...accidental.” He seems to gather himself, almost as if bracing, and growls. “Part of the ceiling came down. I flinched. Stumbled backward into a brazier and caught alight.” he folds his arms, and Jafar feels his face twist as he catches another whiff of the Styx all but pouring off the lich, ice cold and faintly ringing with voices. “She flung me into the river to put me out. May have miscalculated the force. I was almost thrust upon the shores of Acheron.”

Jafar feels more than sees the air escape Hades lungs and lets him slump back on the throne with no further comment.

That part of their contract is written in blood and stone – they may be villains, but to raise magic, hand and/or weapon against each other would be an instant nullifier, and Jafar knows he’s not the only one afraid that their entire partnership would unravel if but one of them turned on another.

They aren’t good, and they’re well aware of it. One can only hope that keeping this arrangement mutually beneficial keeps it stable. For now, at least.

“I assume Charon was able to fish you out?” he asked. The bony boatman seemed able to materialise out of the river at will.

The unmistakable sound of squelching and popping heralded their final arrival. “Oho no, angelfish, that was all me.” Ursula hefted herself gracefully over the windowsill, tentacle arms braced against the stonework. “His Highness swims like a rock. All that fur doesn’t help.” She snickered. Said undead royalty raised his shoulders in the approximation of a shrug.

“I stopped being able to float about five centuries ago. Were the current not so strong I would have walked back along the river bed. The banks are too sheer to climb up.”

“That’s by design.” Hades grumbled. “You have any idea how many schmucks used to climb out and wander off?? It was a nightmare. The imps used to have to herd them all into the floodplains so I could blast them back in four times a week.”

“Regardless.” Jafar strode forward, before stopping suddenly. “The throne room is twenty stories high. Ursula. Why. The stairs are right there.”

The sea witch inspected her fingernails. “Stairs are for two legs, walls are for eight.” She smacked her lips and grinned. “And I’m not wasting magic on shapeshifting when I can get here and look good at the same time, sweetheart.”

Jafar tried very very hard to not imagine Ursula latched to the ceiling like some kind of vast, malicious, be-tentacled bat and resolved not to walk near to any of the underworlds walls for fear of ambush. Ursula finally seemed to bore of her fingernails and slid further into the room.

“Anyway, I can confirm what the tabloids are blowing bubbles about.” At this her grin dropped. “Invites for the newest arrivals welcome have been issued to everyone.” She glanced at the King and emphasised. “Everyone. Except our Dragon.”

They reabsorb the news with a background of malcontent and dash of something vile.

Maleficent had been seen by the general populace and, eventually, the forces of good as the de facto leader of the Disney Villains for decades. This wouldn’t nearly have rankled so hard if no villains had been invited – that would just be a moral difference and a wish for a quiet party, which they could have left alone.

No. Someone had gone out of their way to not only invite every villain under the sun, including those ignored for decades (no offence to the Horned King, but he kept to himself and when thought of it tended to be with horror), but specifically exclude Maleficent. That’s personal. That’s petty.

That’s downright stupid given that the disrespect shown in exactly the same manner regarding the royal christening of Aurora led to a 16 year curse.

It’s a great big, giant flag absolutely daring her to do something about it.

Jafar gripped his staff so hard his knuckles cracked. “She’s being baited.”

The Horned King’s eyes were already beginning to take on a faint scarlet glow. “The situation requires caution. If she reacts, especially violently, she will lose face, and so will we as a faction.”

“And if she does nothing it tips our hand to our enemies and invites a repeat.” Ursula snarls. The King growled, but did not back down.

“...A united front then.”

They turn to look at him. “The other villains have already seen the jab and will be expecting a riposte. Failing to do so highlights weakness and opportunists within our ranks will not hesitate to explore the new power balance, which is tedious to put down.” He twirls his beard around one finger, not missing the way Hades eyes light up as the elder god cottons on to his line of thinking. “We have kept the nature of our...arrangement obscure enough that reacting as a unit highlights our allyship without revealing anything more than is strictly necessary.”

“It also demonstrates that we are not as separate as the heroes would like to believe, even in matters that do not seemingly concern us individually.” His Majesty nodded. “I am willing to continue with this course of action.”

Hades clapped his hands together, flame crackling. “Get in, cause a scene, block the doors, get some popcorn for Mal’s next level retaliation. Heh, if I didn’t know any better I’d say this is the best date you’ve ever suggested, Jaffy!”

“Don’t call me Jaffy.” His face betrayed him, he can’t stop smiling. A manic thing that made him look wrong in all sorts of lighting. He knew made his partners weak in the knees.

“Aaaalright then.” Hades cracked his knuckles. “HK, Ursie, call up your mens! I’ll get the word out to Sephie and Facilier – feels like Mal’s on the move towards Asphodel so I’ll head out that way and lay out the plan to her, see if she wants us to do anything extra juicy.” He licked his fangs and dropped his voice and Jafar wasn’t going to get weak knees while plotting, he wasn’t, he wasn’t-

“Alright then.” He chuckled, drinking in three faces full of vitriol and malicious compliance. “Let’sssss crash thissss party.”

[merakiui]

Not scara being even dreamier I'm going to explode he's getting so many birthday kisses 🥺

He has my entire heart in a chokehold... OTL he may claim he has no interest in knowing what becomes of the food he gifted you, but I'm sure he will spy on you to see what you do with it. And he is filled with lots of pride when you do eat it and it looks like you've enjoyed it. But then of course you would! He's a skillful chef, after all.

[arowrath]

my friend says atp the school is being negligent and i should report them which is probably true but also i mean. at least they clearly explained the process even if every part ogf it has gone wrong or gone on for far too long. and nobody has shown open contempt towards me during the process. unlike last time 😒. so are they being negligent possibly. butit could be worse & i . ohh my god thahnk you youtube autoplay for turning on alltoo well 10 minute version right now. i'm gonna go ruminate now.

[kakitysax]

Thank you for making that post about goncharov and being consistent with tagging stuff. Some of us folks have enough trouble telling what is and isn't real without getting gaslit by a whole website. It's a lot more enjoyable when the context is readily available so I really appreciate that. /srs

You're so welcome!!! Thank you for telling me this!!! /gen

I had some "friends" in middle school whose idea of a "joke" was making shit up, then telling it to people, then laughing when they believed it. They often used me for this because I'm autistic gullible and trusting.

I never understood what the funny part of it was supposed to be. Like. Of course I'm going to believe what you're saying, you're my friend. And then later they'd be disappointed when they tried to make "jokes" and it didn't work, or angry when I questioned them about something that was true. You are actively teaching me not to trust you and now you're mad that I don't trust you?

It's also so disorienting when I'm first in that place between trusting someone and learning not to trust someone. Because I'm autistic I have a very strong sense of truth and justice and wanting to know what's real, so when I start to question if one thing is real, I start to question if everything is real. I even start to dissociate and shit.

Eventually what I realized is that that reaction is the joke for them. They like seeing me upset, confused, and out-of-the-loop. They like it when I have to beg them for the truth. They like knowing that they can lie to me over and over again and that there will always be that wide-eyed little part of me that initially believes them.

They like being mean.

The first few minutes I knew about the Goncharov joke, I ran a quick google search and started to dissociate and panic a little bit as I received conflicting information. I couldn't find anything online by a quick google that said it wasn't real. I ran back and checked the tag, and found one user (@elytrians) who dutifully broke it down and told the truth. Immediately I understood that it was a joke, and I thought it was the funniest shit in the world! I also love making shit up so I hopped onboard and started writing fake discourse.

But it's not funny if you're not keeping it grounded in the truth. Then it's just mean.

New users are flooding in from Twitter right now, and our attitude about this joke is going to set a precedent for what Tumblr is like and how we use it. I came here when the site was believed dead because I knew it was a safe space for neurodivergent people. I'm going to be so, so pissed if we lose that because people would rather gaslight autistic people and people with trauma or psychosis.

So yeah. Gonch responsibly.

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

Nothing quite as humbling as looking back at your old takes and realizing that you were completely wrong

[aeide-thea]

apropos of nothing but like. the thing in fic(tion generally?) where characters will be like 'oh no did i say that out loud???' or, like, absentmindedly give someone a kiss goodbye and then five minutes later do a double-take about it is SO unrelatable to me as to be unbelievable tbh

[gyomei-hime]

— gh.

[cyarsk52-20]

When Tina Turner left her first husband - who was also her boss, captor, and brutal tormentor - she snuck out of their Dallas hotel room with a single thought in her mind: "The way out is through the door." From there she fled across the midnight freeway, semi-trucks careening past her, with 36 cents and a Mobil gas card in her pocket. As soon as she decided to walk out that door, she owned nothing else. When she filed for divorce, she made an unusual request. She didn't want anything: not the song rights, not the cars, not the houses, not the money. All she wanted was the stage name he gave her - Tina - and her married name - Turner. This was the name by which the world had come to know her, and keeping it was her only chance to salvage her career. Things could have gone a lot of ways from there. She could have labored in obscurity for decades, maybe making records on small labels to be prized by vinyl connoisseurs in Portland. She could have stayed in Vegas, where she first went to get her chops back up, and worked as a nostalgia act. And, of course, given what she had been through, she might have … not made it. What happened instead is that Tina Turner became the biggest global rock star of the 80s. I'm old enough to barely remember this, but if you aren't, it was like this: The Rolling Stones would headline a stadium one day, and the next day it would be Tina Turner. A middle-aged Black woman - she became a rock star at 42! - sitting atop the 1980s like it was her throne. She managed this because of whatever rare stuff she was made of (this is a woman whose label gave her two weeks to record her solo debut, Private Dancer, which went five times platinum); because she decided to speak publicly about her abusive marriage and forge her own identity, and in doing so give hope and courage to countless women; and also because - in a perhaps unlikely twist for a girl from Nutbush, Tennessee - she had her practice of Soka Gakkai Nichiren Buddhism, to which she credited her survival. She remained devout until the end. Tina's second marriage - to her, her only marriage - was to Edwin Bach, a Swiss music executive 16 years her junior. Of him, she said, "Erwin, who is a force of nature in his own right, has never been the least bit intimidated by my career, my talents, or my fame." In 2016, after a barrage of health problems, Tina's kidneys began to fail. A Swiss citizen by then, she had started preparing for assisted suicide when her husband stepped in. According to Tina, he said, "He didn't want another woman, or another life." He gave her one of his kidneys, buying her the remainder of her time on this earth and perhaps closing a cycle which took her from a man who inflicted injury upon her to a man willing to inflict injury upon himself to save her from harm. Born into a share-cropping family as Anna Mae Bullock in 1939, she died Tina Turner in a palatial Swiss estate: the queen of rock 'n roll; a storm of a performer with a wildcat-fierce voice; a dancer of visceral, spine-tingling potency and ability; a beauty for the ages; a survivor of terrible abuse and an advocate for others in similar situations; an author and actress; a devout Buddhist; a wife and mother; a human being of rare talent and perseverance who, through her transcendent brilliance, became a legend.

Credit: Will Stenberg

[rev-velvet]

Ima just watch one of Merry's Vods with Invicta and play Splatoon 3 to distract myself

[shadowtraveled]

"mithrun is the only real monsterfucker in dungeon meshi" is objectively the funniest bit you can get out of his everything, but in all seriousness i think his attraction to his love interest is deliberately overstated—and that makes sense, because romantic jealousy is a classic and digestible motive, which is explicitly what kabru was aiming for in condensing mithrun's backstory, and also because until chapter 94, mithrun wasn't willing to admit to the true nature of his desires.

but because romantic envy is both classic and digestible, it probably isn’t a unique enough or complicated enough desire to tempt a demon’s appetite. mithrun’s wish, as far as we can figure from kabru’s reduced retelling, was to have a life in which he had never become one of the canaries, and that carries like 3857 implications and desires within it. that’s delicious. his love interest acts as sort of a red herring to his motivation for making it, though. (side note: i'm saying "love interest" here because, keeping in mind that i barely speak japanese on a good day anymore, "想い人" is something i'd usually take as just kind of an old-fashioned and romantic way to refer to a lover, but in context i wonder if both the connotation of yearning and the vagueness are intentional, and i think this phrasing gets those aspects of it more effectively. anyway.)

mithrun considered his love interest to be untrustworthy. there was a minute where i thought that comment might be about a similar-looking elf (yugin, one of his squad members), but comparing the two…

the "sketchy" arrow is definitely referring to the elf we know as his love interest—the bangs go toward her right, she only has the one forehead ornament, and, most notably, her ears aren't notched.

every time she’s given a full-body depiction in his dungeon, she’s drawn as a chimera, with the body of a snake from the waist down. (side note: the “what if a dungeon has chimeras before reaching level 4?”/“then the dungeon lord is unstable” exchange just being mithrun grilling his past self alive is so funny. he’s so. but anyway) there are a couple things about this.

first, the snake part of the chimera appears to be modeled after some species of coral snake mimic

which, in the biology-for-fun manga, i… doubt is a coincidence, especially with the added context of the “untrustworthy” comment. the dungeon’s conjured illusion of mithrun’s love interest was a harmless copycat of a venomous original. for whatever reason, he felt this person was a threat and made up a "safe" version of her to be in a relationship with, and while it’s definitely possible to be attracted to or even love someone you find to be toxic and/or intimidating, when you take that into consideration alongside the configuration of her body, you get some interesting implications.

which brings us to our second point: if we assume that mithrun was not in fact fucking a snake, then sexual attraction, at least, was so far removed from his idea of a relationship with this person that he did not even bother to keep her dungeon copy human enough to maintain the illusion of the option of a sexual relationship. this is somewhat echoed in the depictions of their interactions, which also imply a frankly unexpected romantic distance. she kisses his cheek and he doesn't seem to react; she's at the edge of a narrow bed with only one set of pillows, on top of his blankets while he's underneath them.

the kiss is particularly interesting because it seems to contrast the text. kabru's narration tells us this was everything mithrun could have asked for, but mithrun is there looking unreadable to pensive, likely because this is right before the panel that makes it clear things in the dungeon are beginning to go wrong.

walking through this backwards for a minute, we have the physical barrier of his bedding and the spatial separation inherent in a bed made for one person, the emotional barrier of his mounting anxiety getting in the way of his ability to enjoy the affection he sought, and... the snake, which historically carries the connotation of temptation, yes, but also mistrust, barring physical intimacy. okay. ok. if a dungeon reflects the mentality of its lord, all of this might suggest that mithrun was not able to have any real desire for a relationship with this person. his unwillingness to be vulnerable or let another person in was insurmountable. but in that case, why was she such a focal point that she remained to the end, after his dungeon had stopped creating iterations of his friends to come and visit him? why would he get so upset over her meeting with his brother that he became lord of a dungeon about it?

well. mithrun's brother was also interested in her, probably genuinely. and mithrun had to win.

you have an older brother who your parents completely ignore, probably in part because he is chronically ill/disabled and almost definitely in part because he received a ton of recessive traits that resulted in rumors that he was an illegitimate child. you are aware, most likely because those same parents fucking told you, that you actually are an illegitimate child. but they keep you around because you had the good fortune of looking just like your mother. what can that possibly teach you but that you, like your brother, are disposable?

it's utterly unsurprising that mithrun, under these circumstances, developed a pathological need to be better than everyone around him. people don't keep you otherwise. i'd argue this is also why he says he looked down on everyone he knew while milsiril claims his dungeon reeked of feelings of inferiority—he sought out people's worst traits and prioritized them in his mind to protect his already extremely fragile sense of self-worth, and all the while he tried to be as likable and high-performing as he possibly could be. his parents disposed of him anyway, but even then he tried to keep up the performance. he was kind to everyone. he never once lost to a dungeon.

when he saw his "love interest" meeting up with his brother, what he saw was himself being replaced by a person his parents had always treated as worthless, and if that was what they thought of the child they'd kept, what value could anyone possibly see in the bastard they'd given away to die? mithrun and kabru tell the story like he wanted to win this unnamed elf's heart, but it was never about being with her. it was about cementing his worth, proving that he didn't deserve to be thrown away.

and so it's particularly cruel that his demon discarded him, too. but maybe it's also particularly gentle that, in the end, there was someone who refused to even consider giving up on him.

kui laid it out in three panels better than i could hope to.

yeah. it's love. you wanted to be loved, even when the only way you were able to understand it was through the desire to be wanted, and you wanted that so badly that the idea of being consumed felt like the promise of finally mattering to someone.