#sword stuff

[sistercara]

woah ask to Cara

you are so fucking pretty i go a little more feral every time i see your pics, i wish i could look as good as you

also random question but what is your favorite kind of sword?

ahk youre very sweet 👉👈 ive been trying to find the motivation to take more but the lens has not been so kind lately

i think my favorite might be the odachi? but hook swords up there too. honorable mention to kusarigama its not a sword exactly but i love her so much

dishonorable mention to the estoc cause i dont tuck

[the-phantom-peach]

drawing my favorite dust particles ❤️

(I really just wanted to get these out of my drafts 💥)

[enigmaris]

Another DPXDC for ya fellas!

Pandora, the ghost, was an Amazon from Themyscira in life, losing her life to trap all of those eldritch horrors in her box. In her afterlife, she has kept in contact with the other Amazons, coming to their aid when called upon.

So when the first child of themyscira was molded out of clay, Pandora knew. She liked Diana, admired her stubbornness, strength, and sense of wonder. She knew the girl had left to go to the world of man a while ago, but hadnt heard anything else about her. She wasnt worried about her though, Diana was the strongest of all the Amazons, kind and brave. The world of man would not pose too much of a danger to her.

After the whole thing her box getting stolen and Danny returning it to her. She takes on something if a motherly role to Phantom. She doesn't really know how kids work though, she comes from a race of women where there were no children. Diana is literally the only living child she has ever known. Pandora herself was never even a child. When Danny flees from his life in Amity Park (reveal gone wrong, family dies, or something) he goes to Pandora who wants to help him, but her acropolis is no place for a half living boy. So she tells him about her niece Diana.

"She was the only child of my people, when she grew up she left to the world of man."

Literally the only child??? Danny is imagining like, someone maybe his sister Jazzs age who ran away from home because she lived on an island with all adults and no fun. It does not help his assumption that Pandora talks about Diana like shes still wet from the clay she was molded in.

Danny is given a letter written by Pandora, asking Diana to help care for him and told that last Pandora heard her little niece lived in Washington DC. Danny goes to DC and manages to find Diana based on Pandora description. She is not at all what Danny was imagining, but she takes him to her home and reads the letter describing Danny's heroics with Pandoras box.

Diana Prince takes one look at this human boy and thinks to herself: if Bruce and Clark can just show up with a teenager, then why can't i?

Queue the next Justice League meeting:

"I would like to introduce my son, Daniel of Themyscira, he will be accompanying me on all Justice League missions. No Batman i will no be accepting any criticism from you of all people."

Danny, in human form, waves at the team of heroes with his string bean arms.

"Hi."

[elliott-forgott]

No hearts, no Zelda— and now he’s going to get killed over a stick. Disregard the fact that he was going to beat the robot over the head with said stick, it’s a STICK.

[koobiie]

A lone swordsman stands in the chamber. He seems... quite lost.

[verflares]

belated valentines zelink ^_^ wanted to revisit these two in particular

[mai-col]

Apparently, I hadn't posted these here yet, for some reason ?

(I'm currently back in my cave working on Les Songes du Roi Griffu.)

[lynxgriffin]

ICE KEY

[madeleinefjall]

Hansry Week day 2: First time

[cartoonico]

[demaparbat-hp]

Here I am, pushing the Jian Li (Akai Kotou! Zuko) = Jinshi (The Apothecary Diaries) agenda.

[tabaciberez]

Alright I see someone mentioned the sword, and I gotta take this up.

The sword

the fucking sword

sword-chan if you will, because "Blarkveld" rolls off the tongue of exactly nobody.

Let me set the stage real quick

House? Wrecked

Friends? Recovered

Wall? Under construction

Risk? High and increasing.

Kirito's in a rough spot. Sinon's out in the desert and needs rescue, but the house is equally fucked if it's abandoned. It's him, Asuna, Alice, Liz, Silica, Yui, and Leefa. Their position is dire: raiders are bound to come, and they need to split the party for this rescue run. Worse, their preexisting equipment is still too high-level for them to use now: a literal deadweight, if it ever comes out of their inventories. In desperation, Kirito makes the decision to melt down Blarkveld to supply the team and the home. As it turns out, endgame ALO gear equates to over a hundred ingots of assorted rarities in UR; more than enough to equip everyone with a few pieces of basic kit.

On the face of it, the scene is strong. Kirito is sacrificing one of his powerful artifacts- and Blarkveld is an artifact in all senses of the word here- to empower his family and his team with the ability to fight both the monsters the game creates and the monsters of humanity that emerge. There's more to it than that, though.

If we read the Progressive Novels, esp. 2, and to a lesser extent 5 and 6, there's a quickly-noticed discussion on 'the soul of the weapon' in which a part of a previous weapon is brought forward and used to craft the next weapon. Just as Kirito takes parts of his bicycle chain and fastenings to use in his next bike to maintain continuity, so to are weapons (and let us not mistake the digital for a place that is not as real as flesh in SAO's internal logic) so too are pieces of the last weapon wielded by himself and Asuna taken forward to continue the cycle.

(someone who is Not Me can thereby write the theorycrafting paper on what Elucidator means in this sword cosmology later)

With this scene, we've not only seen Kirito literally reduce himself to empower his family, but within the sword logic of SAO he's also passed on his memory and spirit to each of them. Lizabeth, the original smith of his blade, is reforging it, thereby transforming the spiritual weight of the tool into a means to ensure everyone has that same power. Most critically, this power (real and hypothetical) has been given to Yui- his daughter. She now holds a portion of her father's strength, and in doing so promises to continue it.

Unital Ring, fundamentally, is a story about love, sacrifice, and the return for the cost of items given. Kirito loses a sword to empower his family; and in return his family is powerful enough to save him from a threat he cannot save himself from.

This isn't the only time this pattern repeats; but it is the first.

Man I love Unital Ring.

Just- the simple symbolism and themes. It's protecting the house and giving back to it that forms the basis of everything else. Kirito and Asuna never abandon their relationship, we all know that, but the addition of Alice and the question of time and damage from the Underworld make the audience wonder. Are the old wounds healed? Are the doubts from Moon Cradle addressed?

Yes. The house is damaged, but standing, and it's the help of everyone to bring it back to it's full strength. Liz and Silica believe in the strength of their friends; and Yui the love of her parents. It's the sacrifice of one of Kirito's swords that gives them the tools they need to go further, and the journey to help a friend that finishes the job as Sinon brings the last ingredients to help and the aid to protect their home. With her coming and completing the home, a cabin in the woods begins it's transformation to Rua na Rig.

We all know the old yarn. For want of a nail, the horseshoe was lost. For want of a shoe, the messenger was lost. For want of a messenger, the battle was lost. For want of a battle, the war was lost.

Here, though? Now?

For love of a wife, the bear was fought. For love of a family, the raiders were fought. For love of a friend, a wall was crossed. For love of a home, a town was born. For love of a town, the witch was fought.

The next book of Unital Ring is coming out soon. I, for one, want to see what else Reki thinks love might build.

[floral-alchemist]

In fencing there is a biological binary* that gives one group an inherent advantage over the other. At high levels the advantaged group has been shown to perform five times better compared to the disadvantaged group, as s direct result of their biology.

Specifically, left-handed fencers perform better on average than their right-handed counterparts.

This is because righties rarely have to fence lefties, while lefties are constantly fencing righties. There's a clear discrepancy of experience. And if a lefty fences a lefty, they'll both feel that they're up against an inverted opponent, so the disadvantage cancels out.

Left-handed people make up about ten percent of the population. Left-handed fencers make up about half of all high level competitors. The inequality is clear as day.

So, should fencing tournaments be divided by dominant hand? As a right-handed fencer, I say no. Sure, it bugs me that I rarely win against a left-handed opponent, but that's just how it goes. Any reasonable person does not begin an endeavor if they can't accept each outcome. And frankly, any outcome in sports should ideally be just doing your best and having fun.

Should fencing be divided by other physical and neurological traits? There are certainly others that make a difference. I've won matches thanks solely due to my height. I've lost plenty of matches due to my slow reflexes. I've lost a handful of matches due to not being very strong.

Some of the traits relevant to fencing have more of an impact than others. Some are correlated with different aspects of biological sex, though there isn't a strict causal relationship. Ultimately no physical trait is as relevant to the outcome of a match as hand dominance is, and while we can have our own opinions on the fairness of a cross-dominant matchup, the fact of the matter is it would be ridiculous to recategorize fencing by any of these traits--including sex--without first taking into consideration the discrepancy between right- and left-handed fencers.

*I call hand dominance a binary, but this is false. Just as sex and gender cannot be conceptualized realistically in binary terms, we should acknowledge that some people are ambidextrous or do not have exactly one right and one left hand.

[gatoiberico]

recently played skyward sword and OOF it's so damn good

prints | also playthrough on my gaming channel!!

[eleanorgrootch]

Started rewatching Skyward Sword again 🍃☁️

[the-phantom-peach]

skyward sword… yeah <3

Crimson Loftwing

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