#i did check

[abluehappyface]

I'm Hadeel from Gaza, I have a three-year-old girl, and I can't even provide her with hygiene tools and natural supplies as a child. I haven't been working for eight months. My husband was killed by the occupation at the beginning of the war. I am stuck in Rafah. I need a 50€ per day diapers for my daughter, after she was traumatized by her father's death in front of her. She's been... urinating involuntarily. Vegetables for 20 euros and flour for 30 euros so that I can feed my child and my family, but it is difficult to get them and I am without work. Please help me by donating or posting and reaching the donors, my mother was injured in the foot, which led to the amputation of her foot. It needs care and medicine, and there is no treatment in Gaza. Wound disinfection requires many medical things and materials. She needs surgery and artificial footing, but we can't do it. We lost everything in war.

.

[notreallystars]

I've been thinking about Gil-Galad's parentage off the back of this excellent compilation of theories and I've reached a conclusion that surprises me. Gil-Galad son of Fingon could make sense. Not to everyone, but certainly to me.

There are things royalty tends to be pragmatic about. Marriage and succession are often high on that list. Kings want heirs. They really want heirs. Some of this is selfish, but some of it is not because it is really about stability.

Fingon becomes king, and he really shouldn't have. There had been one mad uncle, seven half-cousins, and his father before him in the line of succession. Feanor burned, Maedhros had abdicated and passed over all of his brothers, and Fingon's father has just thrown his life away in single combat with Morgoth. The crown should never have reached him.

Fingon is, presumably, grieving for his father. He hasn't seen his remaining siblings for nearly four centuries, and may not know that one of them isn't remaining any more or that she had a son. He considers at the people who could be crowned in the event of his death and sees... what?

Turgon is gone, no one knows where. Even if we assume that a queen would have been considered equivalent to a king in the canon (and I don't) Aredhel has gone with him and Fingon probably doesn't know about either her death or her son.

Finrod is still alive. This helps. Angrod is dead. Aegnor is dead. Galadriel is alive but she has married a Sinda who would presumably be king were she queen, and there are probably some among the Noldor who would not be content to be ruled by Thingol's kin. Orodreth is alive, and his daughter - but again, should we assume that a queen would have been considered?

So Fingon considers the people who could be made king in the event of his death

A brother no one can find

A cousin who spends more time with the Secondborn with every year that passes and who, when Fingon becomes king, has just made an oath of his very own (I don't think Fingon would think very highly of oaths, all things considered)

A Sinda prince who married another of his cousins

A second cousin

Presuming people continue not finding Turgon, and there is no good reason then for him to presume otherwise, there is no one of his house to inherit. This kind of thing often matters to royalty. Finrod is a good leader but would not want to focus on leading only the Noldor, and he has just made his own oath to Barahir which I think would cause Fingon concern. There would likely be political difficulty about Galadriel and Celeborn ruling. Orodreth would probably be fine.

Given the wider context, however, (Fingon had once had two uncles, his father, seven half-cousins, a second half-cousin {half-second cousin?}, two brothers, a sister, four cousins, and a second cousin of Finwe's house who could have ruled Finwe's people. Now, of all that family, he can come up with one second cousin about whom he has no reservations) I don't think he would have found that reassuring.

And so Fingon does what kings do when they see that the future stretching out beyond them is not stable, not assured. He thinks I must have an heir. Frankly I think this could be managed by secretly adopting a child whose parents had a sufficiently Finwe-esque appearance, but that isn't the version of events I'm going through.

He finds someone willing to bear his child. I even think this could be compatible with Russingon ('I don't like it any more than you do, but it has to be done, Finno') because, again, there are things royalty tends to be pragmatic about.

The child is born, the child is sent away because Fingon has learnt that High Kings of the Noldor are not safe people to know. He sends letters with him. He writes to Finrod, to Cirdan, to everyone he can think to trust that he has sent his son away for his own safety, letting them know where he could be found. A letter goes with Ereinion, not to be read until he is deemed ready, explaining that he is the son of the High King, that he is being kept safe.

Ereinion is too well-hidden. Fingon falls, and no one can find this supposed son. Among those who were told of him are some who consider that he was simply a ruse and had never, in fact, existed.

Nearly forty years after Fingon's death an elf appears. He prefers Nandorin to Sindarin, and speaks little Quenya. He has an old letter with him from a father he has never met, and a striking resemblance to Fingon.

...I had thought I was going to be writing about Gil-Galad, but a lot of this turned out to be about Fingon. There's a surprise.

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[diabloku]

Lucifer: *enters the hotel*

Alastor: I cast vicious mockery 😈

An animation my sis and I made for fun

Music is Perception Check by Tom Cardy.

[miseria-fortes-viros]

yoooo guys these wings my dad made look INSANE i can’t wait to try them tomorrow

[julnites]

Red riding hood comic collab with the wonderful @yeehawpim (go check out their blog for loads of great comics!) 🌷 See the layouts he did here!

[creations-by-chaosfay]

I was curious about what my wage and time, plus materials, would bring the cost of a foundation paper pieced and handquilted king size quilt to...and...

Okay, anyone willing to pay this amount will be enough to convince to make something this...outrageous. it'll close commissions for a year or two, and require frequent breaks so I don't burnout.

$23,800 USD.

$27× 900 hours + cost of materials (batting alone will be $200, 25 yards of fabric will be about what i need, i'll kill several rotary blades with all the cutting, and likely go through at least two spools of thread) = final cost

That amount of money will be what it takes to convince me to make this. If you're willing to pay for one of these now, hmu. I'll make the listing.

If you want just a king size quilt top, that's still $6150 USD. I'll need around 25 yards of fabric, a couple spools of thread (or a cone), and two to three rotary blades. This will take around 200 hours for traditional piecing. Foundation paper piecing will add another 100-200 hours easily because I have to print each section of each block, cut them out, fold along the seam lines, cut all the fabric, sew the fabric to the paper, press each seam, trim, rinse and repeat many times, sew the blocks together, remove the paper (sooooo many pieces), make the rows, and sew the rows together. So foundation paper piecing will bring the top to $11,650. For just the quilt top.

If you're 100% certain you want a king size quilt, and you're able to pay, let me know. I'll put the commission listing up for you, and promptly close commissions until further notice.

Money is good incentive.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

woke up and someone spilled vanilla extract all over my dash, so as punishment you strange little beasties are getting all the VANILLA FACTS i know:

vanilla is the 2nd most expensive spice in the world (2nd to saffron)

which is why more than 99% of what we call "vanilla extract" is actually vanillin (vanilla's dominant flavor compound) and is not extracted from real vanilla.

luckily, even professionals struggle to tell the difference when it comes to things like baked goods. but there is a distinct difference in non-heat treated products like vanilla ice cream. real vanilla has a more complex, individualized flavor profile.

why is vanilla so expensive? because it is a ridiculously delicate & demanding crop. complete primadonna.

vanilla beans come from vanilla orchids. these crazy flowers bloom for A SINGLE DAY and have to be HAND-POLLINATED in a process that is exhausting, delicate, and requires specialist knowledge passed down over generations.

then, if you're lucky, you get vanilla beans.

which then require months of further specialized treatment.

the entire process takes about a year and can go wrong at any stage

vanilla has been cultivated for over 800 years (possibly much longer). the first known cultivators are the Totonac, an indigenous people of Mexico.

the Aztecs used it as a sweetener to balance out the bitter taste of cocoa. it was popular in a drink called xocolatl--the precursor to modern hot chocolate!

it is only pollinated by a very specific orchid bee!!!

which is why no fruit could be grown outside of Mexico until the 1800s

Edmond Albius, born into slavery, invented the pollination method we still use today--launching a global industry when he was just 12 years old.

today, the majority of the world's vanilla is grown in Madagascar

if you want real vanilla, read the labels carefully--it's harder to find than you think!

in conclusion, those tiny black specks you see in fancy vanilla ice cream? those are vanilla bean seeds! itty bitty orchid seeds!!! they are delicious and also a PRISSY BITCH!

(src)

[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.

[melblancscream]

(x)

[inkskinned]

you're in the habit of denying yourself things.

if someone asked you directly, you would say that you love a little treat. you like iced coffee and getting the cookie. you drink juice out of a fancy cup sometimes, and often do use your candles until they gutter out helplessly.

but you hesitate about buying the 20 dollar hand mixer because, like. you could just use your arms. you weren't raised rich. you don't get to just spend the 20 dollars (remember when that could cover lunch?), at least - you don't spend that without agonizing over it first, trying to figure out the cost-benefits like you are defending yourself in front of a jury. yes, this rice cooker could seriously help you. but you do know how to make stovetop rice and it really isn't that hard. how many pies or brownies would you actually make, in order to make that hand mixer worthwhile?

what's wild is that if the money was for a friend, it would already be spent. you'd fork over 40 without blinking an eye, just to make them happy. the difference is that it's for you, so you need to justify it.

and it sneaks in. you ration yourself without meaning to - you don't finish the pint of ice cream, even though you want to. the next time you go to the store, you say ah, i really shouldn't, and then you walk away. you save little bits of your precious things - just in case. sometimes you even go so far as putting that one thing in your shopping cart. and then just leaving it there, because maybe-one-day, but not right now, there's other stuff going on.

you do self-care, of course. but you don't do it more than like, 3 days in a row. after that it just feels a little bit over-the-edge. like. you can't live in decadence, the economy is so bad right now, kid.

so you don't buy the rice cooker. you can-and-will spend the time over the stove. you can withstand the little sorrows. denial and discipline are practically synonyms. and you're not spoiled.

it's just - it's not always a rice cooker. sometimes it is a person or a job or a hug. sometimes it is asking for help. sometimes it is the summer and your college degree. sometimes it is looking down at scabbed knees and feeling a strange kind of falling, like you can't even recognize the girl you used to be. sometimes it is your handprint looking unsteady.

sometimes it is tuesday, and you didn't get fired, and you want to celebrate. but what is it you like, even? you search around your little heart and come up empty. you're so used to denying that all your desires draw a blank.

oh fuck. see, this is the perfect opportunity. if you had a mixer, you'd make a cake.

[egophiliac]

tsum events continue to be just the best

[sealpup9]

I'm not certain as to how many people checked the description of the new hbomberguy video but he linked a playlist to queer creators on youtube!

Your New Favorite YouTubers - Queer YouTubers you should check out, meticulously compiled by Kat.

It's worth a look! Please don't forget to support your fellow queer creators on YouTube whilst spreading memes and jokes about James Somerton and discussing the hbomberguy video!!

EDIT: @cursedgamerchild pointed out THIS REDDIT THREAD made by Kat

Which is a thread to share more discoveries of plagiarism and also to share more queer creators who could use some love! There's also a link to a google form if you don't have reddit and want to share said information.

[thepictoblr]

Woke up last night, barely remember writing this, went straight back to sleep

[thisnoah]

"You treat your mouth as if it's Heaven's gate"

[Too Sweet by Hozier]

[kathaynesart]

REPLICA PLAYLIST

MUSIC UNDER CUT

I have been receiving requests for any songs that inspired Replica, so here, have my personal playlist. Sorry it’s not Spotify/Soundcloud but they don’t have some of these songs available so uh… guess you’re stuck with YouTube vids. For fun I'll include my personal titles for them (which might give a few hints of what to expect in the future/end).

Replica Main Theme - “Die for You” by Grabbitz Like Father Like Son Like Brother (Omega and Shelldon) - "As Above So Below" by Alistair Lindsay Mikey's Theme / The 1st Vision - "Suzume no Tojimari" by Nanoka Hara Military (Mad) Dogs / Central Park Colony - "Imperium" by Madeon Shanghai - "Icarus" by Madeon Boom Goes the Donnie-mite (Mikey/Donnie vs the Sweeper) - "The Red Zone" by Mitsuoto Suzuki The Day the Sky Bled Red - "7 Seconds Till the End" by Nobuo Uematsu Going Out Like a Boss (Raph and Leo) - "Agape" by Nicholas Britell Remembering the Right Way (Mikey and Leo) - "The Souls of Many" - by Alistair Lindsay Mystic Hands / The 2nd Vision - "Am I Dreaming" by Metro Boomin x A$AP Book 2 Trailer - "Sea Dragon" by Covet 7 Years Later - "Iron" by Woodkid Leo's Theme / Attack on the Labor Camp - "Ego Death" by Polyphia Omega's Theme - "Touch" by Daft Punk Flat Lines (Omega Alone) - "Die Toteninsel Emptiness" by 1000 Eyes Spear - "Monsters" by Tommee Profitt Final Protocol - "The Kraken" by Katie Dey Rise / Epilogue - "Close in the Distance" by Masayoshi Soken & Tom Mills

I will admit, it's a little embarrassing since you can easily see the patterns of what I've been listening to for the past year or two. I swear I listen to more than just videogame OSTs, these songs just jive well with the story and I often find lyrics distracting when brainstorming scenes. Regardless, the music I listen to is such an important part of my creative process and some of these songs really defined the scenes I now have locked in my head. So I figured it was only fair to give them the credit they're due.

I will continue to add to this playlist, and will note in comic updates when one of these songs is applicable!