#░▒▓ admiral's answer (( answered ))

[laddertek]

Etho immediately choosing Decked Out 2 (+Tango's reaction) xBCrafted's Season 10 Episode 17 Hermit Q&A

xB: So, question number three. What has been your favourite project, build, and/or event since joining HermitCraft? Etho: That I did? Or that other people did? xB: Uh, just, whatever. Whatever you...y'know, your favourite. Just, whatever. Etho: Oh, that's gotta be Decked Out 2, then. xB: Okay. (laughs) Etho: (laughs) Easy answer! xB: I mean, you only played it a little, though... Etho: Ahh, it was a few months. A few months of my life, there. Got a little bit involved. xB: (laughs) A couple minutes, here and there, you know. Etho: Yeah. xB: I know how you are. No. (laughs) ---- xB: I feel like your answer is gonna be the same as Etho's. Tango: Oh, did he say Decked Out? xB: Yes he did. (laughs) Tango: Ohhhh, my hero! Yeah, Decked Out is definitely my answer. Slam dunk. xB: I was like, 'Yeah, what do you mean? You only played, like, a little bit...' (both laugh) Tango: Well, that -- Honestly, the fact that he said that, means -- means everything to me. That's great, that he values it that high. That's great. That's great. xB: Oh, yeah, yeah. He was like, he was like, 'That's easy. Decked Out 2.' I was like, 'Okay!' (laughs) Tango: (laughs) Fantastic. Good! Good!

[puppyeared]

good morning sifloop nation

[whaliiwatching]

one in a million admirers…

based on ofc this prompt

[canisalbus]

I’d invite machete and vasco to my animal crossing village

They're a package deal, you have to take them both.

[blackbatcass]

donna’s inherent honesty vs dick’s tendency to be manipulative.. speak to me

[shanastoryteller]

Happy Valentines Day Shana!! 💕💕 Sybok and Jim contiuation? I wanna see more of Sybok teasing the shit out of Spock for his oblivious crush

a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

It's rude to speak in a language not everyone present speaks, however Sybok became immune to social niceties around the time his father stopped bringing him to official functions. He switches to High Vulcan to say, "We can tell her I picked you up off an Orion slave ship."

Uhura's right eye twitches.

"She can understand you," Jimmy says. "She's a xenolinguist."

Bones's eyes narrow. He's so much more indignant in person than in the background of Jimmy's video calls. "What are you going on about now? I hate when you do this. I always feel like you're planning how to dispose of my body."

Jimmy had told him that Bones had started studying Vulcan. He'd also told him that he was incredibly bad at it, but not everyone can be Jimmy, which was realistically probably for the best.

He drops down to standard Vulcan to say, "Ah, so you have a talented tongue," since there's really no way to say that in High Vulcan that's a double entendre. It doesn't help that most of their potentially risque phrases are hand rather than mouth oriented, but he's learned to make do.

Spock turns an unhealthy shade of pale as his eyes widen the tiniest amount in abject horror.

Uhura raises her eyebrow in a way that reminds him of his brother. "To master a language is the study of a lifetime. I would be most appreciative if you were to give me a hand in achieving this endeavor."

Spock's skin flushes and he looks around like he's seriously considering running away from this conversation.

Sybok is delighted.

"Uhurua!" Jimmy shouts, hands on his hips. "Come on! I say that to you and you don't even let me buy you a drink, but you'll just proposition Sybok in the middle of the hallway?"

"She did what?" Bones hisses.

That is one possible interpretation of her words.

"I might have gotten around to propositioning you too," she says, "if you hadn't gotten your ass beat."

"Okay, I think I did okay, actually," Jimmy argues while Bones's face morphs into an expression eerily similar to Spock's.

He loves Earth.

[lgbtlunaverse]

It seems the dash has been talking about the Lan Xichen - Nie Huaisang post-canon dynamics and it's gotten me thinking about how discussion around post-canon Lan Xichen's absolutely horrendous mental state often center around the question of "who is Lan Xichen angry at and who does he feel guilty about" which, at its worst, seperates into 2 camps where according to one side he feels guilty about not protecting jgy and hates the Nies and, on the other side he has completely flipped on jgy and despises him now while being filled with regret towards both nmj and nhs.

And I dislike both of these takes not just because it often feels like people projecting their own Blorbo opinions onto Lan Xichen which is never a fun time but also because that central question is flawed to begin with. It treats anger and guilt like opposing emotions that can't coexist or, if they do, have to compete until one wins and cancels the other out.

And that's not how that... works.

To be clear, the reason why Lan Xichen is so supremely fucked up at the end of the story is that he believes on some level he fucked over everyone in this situation. And, even more importantly, that even with hindsight he can't actually think of what he should have done instead. Every attempt to do better by one seems to involve fucking over the others even more because these people were in conflict with each other and choosing one would mean standing against another

And none of this would actually stop him from feeling angry at any of them. It's not "who is he angry at and who does he feel guilty about" it's: "he is angry at everyone and feels an immediate and bone deep guilt for daring to think badly of them."

Speaking from personal experience here, but feeling like you're not allowed to be angry at someone because you wronged them really doesn't stop the feeling, it just maks you feel like shit for feeling it. And this is all worsened by the fact that what he's in seclusion for is, at the end of the day, a moral question of what he, Lan Xichen, did wrong and every single emotion serves as further proof of the ways he's failed them.

Is he angry at Jin Guangyao, for killing his oldest friend, using Lan xichen's trust in him to do it, and then lying to him about it and countless other things for a decade when Lan Xichen thought of him as the person he trusted the most in the entire world? Yeah. That's a thing people get angry about! Except Jin Guangyao also saved his life and protected and helped him more times than he can count and never ever hurt him and can Lan Xichen say the same? No. He had to clean A-Yao's blood off Shouyue, he has to be haunted by the fact that if he just hadn't listened to Huaisang- hadn't been just like everyone else, in the end, and believed a lie about Jin Guangyao just to think the worst of him- then Jin Guangyao might still be alive.

Is he angry at Huaisang? For orchestrating the death of his best friend? For making him do it? For knowing what the real cause behind Nie Mingjue's death was and never telling him until he found out in the absolute worst way? Absolutely. But didn't Huaisang hide it from him for a reason? Wasn't it his clan's techniques and his personal faith in Jin Guangyao that cost Huaisang his brother? How dare he demand that Huaisang let him in on the secret of his brother's murderer when Lan Xichen is here wondering about how he should have protected that murderer better!

And I do even think he's angry at Nie Mingjue, sometimes I think it's pretty normal to be angry at your friend for kicking your other friend down the stairs and threatening to kill him, even when you know his mind is being poisoned. And years later the last thing he ever saw of Nie Mingjue was Nie Mingjue's thoughtless corpse coming to kill him before Jin Guangyao pushed him away and then proceeded to graphocally snap Jin Guangyao's neck in front of him. And if what he wants to do is protect Jin Guangyao, shouldn't he be mad at Mingjue? Didn't this whole mess start because Jin Guangyao was afraid Nie Mingjue was going to kill him?

Except holy shit, can you imagine? Lan Xichen feels like he personally has Nie Mingjue's blood on his hands. Your oldest friend is killed in front of you and you happily believe it's an accident for 11 years and now you think you have the right to be mad at him? You watched him get worse as he was being poisoned and attributed it to his illness and not to the techniques stolen from your library with the token you give his murderer. Does he think Nie Mingjue knew who he was in that moment and wanted to kill him? That he blamed Lan Xichen for his death? (For the record, I don't. I don't agree with most of what Lan Xichen thinks about himself, but I've been in a self-blame spiral and I know how it feels)

But what was he supposed to do then? Choose Mingjue's side and let A-Yao die? That's also unacceptable. But so is letting Jin Guangyao get away with it. Every single outcome is unacceptable. And really, if Jin Guangyao felt like he had to kill Nie Mingjue to save himself, when it was Lan Xichen who was supposed to keep the peace between them, isn't that another mark of his failure? That he couldn't protect Jin Guangyao well enough that he felt he had to do something so horrible?

But that's not an answer! He's supposed to know what he should have done different, and all he can come up with is "what you were already doing, but without failing this time" He can't pick a side because that means betrayal, but he's already tried not picking a side and it ended like this! There is no right answer, which can only leave him with the idea that he was simply doomed to hurt the people he loved from the start. No wonder the guy looks like shit when we see him post-canon. They put him in a real life trolley problem and gave him the lever as a souvenir.

[bishicat]

"Would you be offended if I said I fancied you?"

[fanaticsnail]

Smoker for Kissing Booth please? 💕🌻

The Kissing Booth: Smoker for Sunflowersatori

Word Count: 850+

Notes: I hope you enjoy some dad-jokes. Ever since I saw the pants and the ice-cream, I couldn't stop slipping some cringe humor into his kisses. I hope you enjoy your kisses from the vice-admiral, sunflowersatori!

The corner of your lips upturned as you heard a small child cry out in glee at winning a prize. Humming briefly, you shake your head and deeply inhale through your nose to take in more of the surroundings. 

Caramelizing sugars in the heated cylindrical dome rose towards you, as did several meats and vegetables smoking over an open fire. As you continued your analysis, you could almost smell your next guest before you heard him approach the table. The sour scent of cigars caused you to recoil slightly, shaking off the heady scent of tobacco-laden nicotine. 

Several leaves were placed beside you in the glass container, a gruff cough grunting out as you heard a larger body sit themselves down on the wooden stool in front of you. Alongside the cigar scent, the lingering woody scent of pine and oakmoss aftershave caused your brows to furrow inquisitively. 

“M’sorry to do this to you,” the rumbled baritone called in front of you, the stool scuffing the floor as he inched closer to you. “My-... uh-... underlings decided to force me to come to your booth. Not somethin’ I’d ever seek out for myself.” You sink back in your seat, pursing your lips and folding your arms together in disapproval.

“No, no, no. Not that I don’t think you’re-...” he trailed off, attempting to back track his words while growling under his breath, “...I’m just gonna dig myself a hole no matter what I say now, aren’t I?” 

“Seems that way, yes,” you admit with a small scoff. You heard him chuckle in response to your retort, his body beginning to descend closer towards you. He placed his hand over yours, drawing your digits up to his face and permitting you to dance your digits over his cheeks to map his face before your kiss.

“Just so you know who your kissin’,” he whispered, his face near inches away from yours as you rolled your thumbs over his face. His heady aftershave swirled your mind as you flicked over the coarse skin on his cheeks and chin. 

“Thank you,” you whispered in response, gently lacing your fingers over his cheek to card through the cropped hair at the nape of his neck, “Very considerate of a man who was priorly digging himself such a deep hole.” 

“What can I say?” he whispered, his breath tingling your lips due to his close proximity, “I’m a kind and considerate excavator.” You fling a carefree giggle in the air before finally pressing your lips to his.

His lips felt chapped, subtle creases in his upper lip that indicated the puckering grimace of a nicotine addict. He drew his broad hand down to cup your thigh as he dominated your lips with his almost immediately.

Circling his chin and changing angles of his kiss, he hungrily sought out more of your lips and mouthed at you to open yourself up to him. His tongue darted out to dance with your own, the slow grind atop your own tongue holding a lingering taste of sour smoke. 

You continued to press lengthy movements of your lips on his, slowly dragging your hands at the base of his neck and raking your digits down towards his chest. He hummed into the kiss, his nose brushing against yours as he switched angles once more before ending the engagement. 

Pulling away from your lips, he softly rumbles a soft chuckle. Reaching his hand up from your thigh, he slowly thumbs over your bottom lip and caresses your cheek gently. 

“I’ll, uh…” he sheepishly chuckled with a breathy sigh, “I’ll be back to plow you some more later.” You immediately furrow your brows and downturn your prior smile and clench your teeth. 

“Excuse me?” you recoil away from his grip, sitting back against the barstool. He immediately staggered over his words, coughing before reaching into his jacket pocket and rustling his hand around.

“I just meant, from our earlier hole digging-...” he trailed off, prompting you to shake your head and huff out a small laugh. He joined your laughter with a chuckle of his own, flicking back the metal flint to spark the heat of a small flame. He rose to his feet, sliding back the barstool and sighing deeply. 

“Enjoy taking your quarry somewhere else for a couple hours,” you giggle at him, your tight-lipped smile withholding your more unbridled laughter, “I don’t mean to bore you, but I’ll be planted here for a little while longer.” 

“Oh, you’ll be mine soon enough,” he chuckled in response, reaching down and grasping your hand, raising it to his lips and pressing a chaste kiss on your knuckles. He turned away from you, walking back over towards his subordinates and verbally chastising himself. 

“I’m a kind and considerate excavator?” he growled, sucking in a heavy lungful of his twin cigars, “What even is that?” Shaking his head, he spared you one last glance over his shoulder, noticing your kiss-bruised lips and subtle fluster on your cheeks. He can’t wait to see you again, if that’s at all something you would want from him.

[arabella-strange]

also I'm pretty sure there was a moment (mid-cross talk during the ep) as somebody was mentioning Orym always being in the protective/defensive position and thus in the thick of it, when Dorian muttered almost too quietly, a little admiring, a little (hollowly) laughing, a lot sad, "Always right in the mix..."

and by "I'm pretty sure" I mean I can't stop thinking about it

[blacklegsanjiii]

Hello! I LOVE your different headcannons for Sanji. If your accepting request, can you do one where Zeff and Garp are like old rivals/lovers, where Garp brings Luffy, Ace, and Sabo to the Baratie just to see Zeff. But unbeknownst to Garp, the ASL trio meets Sanji and have a childhood sweethearts moment (ASL Trio x Sanji). Garp just laughs and Zeff is modified that his own eggplant managed to pull 3 boys.

Zeff and Garp have been rivals and lovers since the dawn of time. Garp will come around when they're younger and tell him about his battles with Roger and White Beard and the parties after. Of course nothing compares to his time with Zeff. Nothing.

Zeff always gives him that unimpressed look as he feeds Garp and then suddenly be in the marines lap and held and cooed over as Zeff cursed him to hell and back. Garp always laughed at that. Then when Baratie opens and Garp meets Sanji, Garp says he'll be back.

He comes back a week later with three kids entow. Zeff pinches the bridge of his nose as they're all introduced. Sanji is staring at them before shrugging and going to the kitchen but he's caught and told to go play. Sanji is utterly confused as he's hauled away by the other kids. Also yeah, Sabo is Sanji's first kiss. Ace uses Sanji as a pillow and carries him all the time, Luffy is holding Sanji's hands all the time. ASL is constantly hanging off Sanji somehow someway in that childhood love type of way.

Zeff is glaring at Garp who is laughing so hard like a year or two later when ASL all say they're dating Sanji and Sanji is just there, trying to get to the kitchen to avoid this conversation. Zeff tells his son he's too pretty for his own good and Sanji looks affronted at that. Garp places a big kiss to Zeff's cheek and Zeff smacks the shit out of Garp.

Tell me he wouldn't.

[jicklet]

Elemental (2023)

[netmors]

Us Karyn Stans eat so well with you ❤️ thank you 😊

Faro is sometimes a very shy woman :3

[canisalbus]

My auntie keeps Golden Guernsey goats on our island, like many of our local unique breeds of livestock they nearly went extinct in the starving during ww2 occupation surviving by only one smuggled flock. They're super friendly and energetic and their colouration might be of interest :eyes:

Oh OH these are very pretty

[howtofightwrite]

Speaking of martial competence, do you have any examples of characters that are actually written with this in mind?

Loads. Some actually even make good on that.

So, there's different kinds of martial competence. There are characters who are proficient in combat directly, there are well written strategists, there are characters who excel at military leadership, and when they're written well, you can actuallylearn some things from them.

I'm going to give some examples, and at least one cautionary example.

For, just, raw combat prowess, I still go back to Robert E. Howard's Conan short stories. It's easy to meme on the character, especially 90 years after the fact, with the cultural persona that's grown around him, but Howard's original writing is excellent. The character would not have survived Howard's early (and, frankly, tragic) death if it was just the one note gag you might expect, if your only exposure to the character was through cultural osmosis and the films.

Howard's fight scenes were shockingly well written. To the point that it is still absolutely worth reading if you want to write a fantasy fighter.

For strategists, three characters come to mind, but only two are literary, and all are Science Fiction.

Grand Admiral Thrawn is probably one of the best villains Star Wars has ever produced, it's part of why he's one of the few characters that's migrated from the original EU to the Disney era. My personal take is, as a character, he's lost a lot over the years, but the original incarnation from the early 90s novels is a very solid model for a strategist. Particularly in how he takes time to understand his opponents while looking for potential weak points to exploit.

His practice of studying a culture's art to understand their psychology might sound a bit goofy, but the concept does have a real basis. (At least, until it metastasized into a superpower, in later adaptations of the character.) Being able to psychologically assess your foe is an incredibly valuable element of strategy, and one that you probably want to consider when you're writing a character who is supposed to be a “strategic genius.”

When writing fiction, you want to consider all of your characters as if they were people, rather than as hollow, plastic toys. And, yes, the obnoxious villain who knows exactly what your heroes will do because of authorial fiat is going to be a more compelling character than the ambulatory goldfish villain who exists as a prelude for your heroes showing off how badass you think they are.

Granted, even in Heir to the EmpireThrawn was already drawing strategic insights that strained credibility, but understanding your foe is an element of strategic thinking that is often forgotten in literature. So, even as a villain in a tie-in novel (we're not done with tie-in fiction yet), he is worth looking at. At least when written by Timothy Zhan, Thrawn was a well written character, and even if he bordered on a Mary Sue at times, he escaped a lot of that stigma by justifying his competence.

It's also probably worth mentioning in passing that he's one of the few Imperial leaders in Star Wars who isn't also criminally incompetent.

The non-literary example of a strategist would be John Sheridan from Babylon 5. Unlike Thrawn, Sheridan's main strategic focus is on situational exploitation. A little of that comes from his knowledge of enemy procedures and psychology, but at lot of it comes from a rather ruthless approach to technical limitations. An alien race is using technology that blocks human targeting systems? Set up a nuclear mine and then send out a fake distress single to lure them in. Need to deal with a significantly larger, more dangerous ship? Lure them into a gas giant and and let the planet's gravity well drag them past crush depth. Bruce Boxleitner's performance helped sell the character, but Sheridan is a really solid science fiction strategist, who really exemplifies how technical limitations can have enormous strategic considerations.

I'm not citing Sheridan as an excellent example of a leader per se,it's certainly there, but it is harder to unpack from Boxleitner's performance. It does have some good payoffs much later in the series when he starts making some orders that cause his subordinates to sit up and stop what they're doing. And that is a consistent theme even back to his introduction, but, it's a tangible consequence to an intangible cause.

The last example is a negative example, both for strategy and leadership. And, as much as it pains me to say this, at least Orson Scott Card understood that Ender was a bad leader. At least in the original novel. To be blunt, Ender is a mediocre strategist at best. His highlights in the book involve, “inventing armor,” and creative movement in micrograv. That's setting the bar exceptionally low, and while it is reasonably within the range of what you could expect from a pre-teen, that's not much of a justification.

Again, I'm not a fan of Card, and I'm reallynot recommending Ender's Gameto anyone. However, if I didn't mention it, you know there'd be a reblog going for twelve hundred words about how Andrew Wiggin is the best strategist in literature, which, yeah, no.

Do you want a goofy, tie-in fiction, literary suggestion for the best leader in sci-fi? Too bad, because I'm pretty sure Ciaphas Cain is not that person. The Ciaphas Cain novels by Sandy Mitchell are unusual as leadership recommendations, because of how much Cain internally processes the social manipulation involved in military leadership. He's not a great leader, but he is exceptionallygood at explaining to the reader how he's creating that illusion to motivate the soldiers around him. In fairness, some of that is an intrinsic character flaw, he is incredibly insecure, and desperately trying to hide that fact. And the difference between being a great leader, and effectively creating a comprehensive illusion of a great leader is: There is no difference. As a serious complement, it is one of the few times I've seen an author treat leadership as an actual skill, and not simply an extension of a character's charisma. Which is why I'm singling this one out. It might sound like a joke inclusion initially, and the books are quite funny in a Warhammer 40k kind of way, but there is quite a bit of  value to be had.

-Starke

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[struggling-jpg]

Random thoughts but

imagine Boothill going to the Luofu and meeting Jing Yuan and by extension Yanqing and it's like "Wow! You guys are motherfudging cool!"

But it occurs to him how young Yanqing is and he can't help but think that maybe his daughter could have grown and made friends with him. It's somewhat concerning that this little guy is in the constant face of danger. Boothill gets it, the kid's strong, but the dad in him worries just a bit.

Then maybe Boothill and Jing Yuan talk while eating (well, Boothill chewing on a bullet probably), and he brings it up casually, smoothly but the General knows what he's trying to get at.

Jing Yuan talks about how he's also feels worry, that he had thought about what it meant to raise Yanqing as a son, retainer, and a soldier. It takes some moments but Boothill finally openly talks about his daughter and how he wishes that he got to see beyond her first steps. That she could have had the chance to play guitar or ride horses or even learn to drive a spaceship. He feels afraid for Yanqing because isn't that boy still so small?

And Jing Yuan agrees with a thin, close-eyed smile that Boothill recognizes but can't put a name to. They reach a mutual understanding yet unanswered questions hang in the air.