#not writing this tumblr post

[sunflowerscottie]

There’s just so much gay longing in RE: Extinction, RE: Afterlife, and RE: The Final Chapter. I mean, they are literally the only movies in that franchise that I watch repeatedly the way I do. People will tell you Apocalypse is the best one but that’s just not true. It’s Extinction. It’s always going to be Extinction. That scene with the crows is just so fucking good, and the chemistry between Alice and Claire is flawless. When Claire screams in anguish and rage and Alice starts fighting the programming? Amazing! Quality! That timing and the choice to use Claire are purposeful, I am telling you.

The fact that when Alice wakes up at the end of The Final Chapter to see Claire’s face? When so often that role is played by the love interest? Let me tell you there is no way that they didn’t do that purposefully. It’s Alice and Claire at the end of the world, baby. If those three movies proved anything, it’s that they understand each other on a deep level.

I mean, Claire dropped Doc like a hot potato, no regrets, the minute Alice turned up again. There was no heartbreak there, you can see it in her face. There was anger and disgust, but she didn’t look like she was losing the love of her life. Not like how she looked when it seemed like Alice was going to have to sacrifice herself (again) to save the world. When Claire thought Alice was going to die, it looked like her heart was being ripped out of her chest. I don’t think she could kill Alice even if Alice betrayed her. (I mean, she probably could, but it would be a very different scene from the one with Doc.)

You cannot make this shit up, and if they made another movie, they’d have to pair Alice and Claire together canonically because I’m pretty sure that 75% of the active fan base is sapphic women who love watching beautiful women wield weapons (it’s certainly not the video game fans!), and we’d riot.

[soul-from-another-era]

Unconditional love isn't a free pass to hurt me.

[sylvies-kablooie]

i do unironically think the best artists of our generation are posting to get 20 notes and 3 reblogs btw. that fanfic with like 45 kudos is some of the best stuff ever written. those OCs you carry around have some of the richest backstories and worldbuilding someone has ever seen. please do not think that reaching only a few people when you post means your art isn't worth celebrating.

[sleeplessv0id]

what doesn't kill you makes you weird at intimacy

[i69bea]

"i wonder if we ever think of each other at the same time."

[anexistingexistence]

Yes I want to write my story but my story doesn't want to be written so what the fuck am I supposed to do about that huh?

[arrowmoose]

I made a meme

[manincaffeine]

[what-iz-life]

I confuse people. i have a happy personality and a sad soul. i'm bold but shy. i love deeply but sometimes i feel heartless. i'm healing and hurting at the same time. i'm dedicated to growth, but i self sabotage

[minimalist-quotes]

The older you get, the more you choose calmness over drama and distance over disrespect. You prioritize your peace, mental health, and happiness - over everything.

[usefulquotes7]

Maturity is when you realize people can't give you what they can't give themselves, so you stop expecting loyalty from people who betray themselves, stop expecting honesty from people who lie to themselves, and stop expecting peace from people who are at war with themselves.

[soul-from-another-era]

[echoesoftheinfinite]

Talking to those who understand you is valuable; perhaps that's why I've spent half my life talking to myself.

[anna-pineappel]

Writing really goes one of two ways:

1. Write 3k words in 30 minutes

2. Takes 3 hours to write 3 sentences

There is no in between

[eggshellsareneat]

Alright, I think I like tumblr now.

A pun post crossed my dash, and I reblogged it with an equally bad pun in return. A couple of my followers find it funny, it's a good day for everyone.

That was on July 7th.

Virality on Reddit was entirely algorithmic. You could garner a couple crossposts, but the success of a post was entirely dependent on whether or not it hit r/all--the main page of Reddit. If your post does that, it's immediately exposed to 10x the number of people and immediately gets upvoted.

On my pun post, I get a couple reblogs. And those reblogs get a couple reblogs--nobody really adds any content to the post, it just gets a couple reblogs here and there.

There's a specific chain of reblogs that I'd like to focus on. The most popular post on this chain has about 25 reblogs on it. Half the posts have three reblogs or fewer. Five posts in this chain have just one reblog total.

But the reblog chain keeps going. And going. It breaches containment many times over. And finally, after a chain THIRTY SIX posts long, at 9:30 AM, July 22nd this morning, it hits a popular account.

99% percent of the people who have seen the post--virtually unchanged from how it left my dash--have seen it because it was curated by 36 different people. That's insane to me.

None of those 36 people know that they're part of this chain. They saw a post, reblogged it, and moved on. If any one of these people had not reblogged, the post would have a fraction of the impact it has.

And yet, after two weeks, the post has effectively hit the main page of tumblr. It was picked up, only because people liked it enough to show it to their followers. There were no algorithms necessary.

You really, truly, cannot get this on any other website.

[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.