#I try not to beat up myself about it

[lunarneo]

POV autistic adult trying to allow themself to enjoy their special interests

[muchmossymess]

uh oh guys, hot take alert:

i think revali may have invented hand held aerial archery HEAR ME OUT- (this is a long one boys)

okay. evidence one: why the fuck would a rito shoot like that. like, it makes nearly zero sense, it would be such a hindrance to their flight and their main stake is that they can be higher than you can shoot whilst still pinging you... which revali has overcome with his gale

evidence two: tulin and the concept arts. obviously rito style archery would be held in their talons. before totk came out idk if anyone had really thought about it too much, but the developers had, as you can see in concept art (from the creating a champion book). and like, its logical, powerful, and allows for peak maneuverability. also, when in flight revali (and teba) holds his bow in his talons before switching to his wings. surely its easier to keep it in your wing (obvi ignoring the effects to flight but hes doing that anyway firing the damn thing) rather than switch back and forth- unless you were taught that way, because why would you hold it elsewhere, you need it in your talons to shoot.

evidence three: we dont see any other rito do it (...kind of). throughout botw and totk, we never see another rito flying with a bow in their hands. in totk, its mostly tulin, who holds it in his talons, but in botw the big one is teba. during the medoh quest, he actually gives *link* his bow, and therefore does no shooting in the sky. teba and harth had both tried to take on medoh before, but we never see this, and while they holds their bows in their hands *on the ground,* we dont see it.

...except for aoc (uh, spoilers?). there are two times we see a rito other than revali hold their bow in their hand for aerial archery. but it is not with any rito soldiers, either during cutscenes (the bows are only on their backs) or gameplay (they swoop down, and then hand hold bows on ground. they arent seen flying at all but thats prolly for the same reasons as botw: its very hard to code that (and so they write the lore around that fact)). the first time we actually see another rito do this, we dont see it. Its teba, as he comes thru the portal, but all we see is the arrow shot, and then him freeze frame with the bow in one wing. we dont see the bow in his hand for the rest of the fight. the second time we actually see him fighting like this, it *is* in the air, but its noticeably different to revali.

hes a lot slower, it clearly takes a LOT more effort to shoot the bow, and he only pulls off one arrow at a time. its canon that revalis bow is heavier/harder to draw, and he manages to effortlessly stream arrows whilst fucking floating midair. i think teba, forever a revali fanboy, heard of how the champion mastered his own style of archery and sought to teach himself, but lacked one key thing: revalis mastery of wind.

evidence three point five: revali could easily use his powers to hold him in the air longer/slow his descent long enough for him to fire his shots. it makes sense, really. if he can use his gale to propel him, he can sit on the updraft for a hot sec, or even curve the path to carry him along while he lines up the shot. this would mean he wouldnt need to flap as much as other rito, who would obviously need to keep flying

evidence four: revalis fighting style and his needs. revali works with non rito, obviously. he needs to be able to communicate with them on the battlefield, and they wont understand the muffled chirps if he holds his string in his beak, so he needs his mouth free to speak hylian. also, revalis main tactic is fly up with gale, shoot, fall, either shoot more or use velocity and weight to knock around opponents, and then fly back up. he often needs both feet planted firmly on the ground to get a good hold of his gale, something that is harder to do if you have a bow in the way.

also, take for example the kick he delivers link in their fight (aoc). that would possibly damage the bow, or give the opponent a chance to grab his weapon, if he held it in his talons. and to switch from feet to back is a risky maneuver during freefall, and could lose precious seconds, and then when you get back in the air you need to get it off your back again. its much easier to keep the bow loosely in your wing the whole time, meaning your free to attack melee, land and rise all while not wasting a single moment getting your next shot lined up.

so yeah, i think the rito used the talon grip for aerial archery, and would often use the hand held method on the ground for a variety of reasons (more powerful shots?, easier in some situations like hunting), but revali was perhaps the first to use hand held aerial, another reason he was one of the greatest archers ever.

[sheepalmighty]

Some more of that Chai joins Vandelay for half a day AU. Or just a picture of a kinda OOC Kale chilling if you wanna gloss over those comics. I'm still not sure if the colours are too garish or not.

These were mostly done with the premise of treating Kale's office like the hideout. I also really like how mundane, or familiar, the interactions between Chai and Kale can be in the game so I wanted to draw some stuff exploring more like that. But also, there's the ulterior motive of shipping so I included an out of context scene because I can't bother drawing the rest of it (though it seems like a huge jump in their relationship as a result. I think they're so big headed that they get stuck in a feedback loop of stroking the other's ego if an excuse comes up to do so)

[kafus]

i got a 97% on the exam to skip the class i'm in/instantly get the credit for it so uh. Yeah i guess i passed that entire class in a 20 minute exam. Cool

[murdleandmarot]

The gang’s all here!! They’re on the case!! And there’s no ghost that they wouldn’t chase!!!!!

@mysticalcats’s Foxglove, @toki-toro’s Chaumet, @emimii’s Clownaire, and my own Bluebelle :)

[spaghett-onaplate]

depression is really weird actually wdym i spent 2.5 years of my life in bed

[jilliancares]

Hello, I've been reading your spideypool fics for a long time and it's been a year since you write one, I'm not sure if you get this kind of words enough but I still wanna say it, honestly jillian you're the best spideypool author I ever meet, I fall inlove with the way you write both peter and wade inside or outside their vigilante/anti-superhero identity.

The way you make their relationship and slowly building up their tension is so satisfying, I couldn't get enough and you set my fics standard high too, I can't find anyone that could capture their dynamic as good as you and I alwayd reread everything you write. If i could I would like to make them as physical books but I can't cuz money (and my parent would ask what kind of book is that and eh..) Anyway, I hope you're alright with your personal stuff and live is doing great for you. I miss you and your writing.

Sincerely,

your fans

wow!!!! i'm so touched by this sweet message, i really can't thank you enough! 🥺 i'm so glad you enjoy my spideypool and my writing!!!

i've definitely been facing some writer's block in the last year, which is annoying and really frustrating at times. at the same time, my life has gotten a lot busier in a lot of really fun ways, like with new friends and hobbies and a relationship. i would love love love to get back to writing spideypool in the future! but at this point, it mostly feels like i have to wait for inspiration to strike. every time i sit down and force myself to try to write spideypool (or pretty much anything recently), i don't manage to get very far and just end up frustrating myself even more. so!!! here's hoping that the writing worm works its way back into my brain sometime soon. but in the meantime, i'm having a lot of fun and happiness and growth and love in my life :)

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

Of my 2% capacity to be attracted to anyone, my type is like 90% women, 5% pretty men and 5% men you would swear are super fucking manly, and never questioned being straight and cis, but are now suddenly *stressed* that they can't figure out why their attraction to me [fully socially interpreted as a woman and labelled that way up until relatively recently] feels incredibly fucking gay

[chiimeramanticore]

[mintjeru]

idk i just love seeing him smile

[r3dblccd]

TOON ME! (A) & (B) | mun vs. muse

practically snatched from @caelcstis

mun | minsung mrithun | nao (in the angel verse) yongsun | ubon

[batsplat]

casey also talks about sepang 2015 what do you think of that

oh in that podcast? uh... lemme listen again...

yeah idk it's not really anything new I'd say? he's said basically all the same stuff in more interesting and extensive ways elsewhere. I think casey inevitably has a very 'well feuding is bad and helps nobody' point of view, has expressed that before in the past, does it here again, and he's also drawn a parallel between himself and marc on several occasions. which... well, of course there's similarities in terms of public discourse or whatever, but the parallel really falls apart whenever casey argues the feuds cost valentino. like, I do think it's sometimes important to just. keep in mind. it's interesting that casey draws this comparison in his mind but that doesn't necessarily means he's right about this. I'm not sure how you'd argue that starting a feud with casey cost valentino anything competitively? you can argue it didn't help him I guess, and then we can have a debate about the ins and outs of the 2008 season. we can also have an argument that in a hypothetical world where casey isn't ill in 2009, valentino doesn't break his leg and casey isn't on a piece of junk in 2010, and valentino isn't on a piece of junk in 2011-12, then actually maybe valentino sparking open animosity with casey COULD have cost him. but we don't know that! didn't happen! I wish we could have found out, but we never got the chance! as it stands, the tally on this is pretty straightforward: casey won the title when things were reasonably civil between them in 2007, and valentino took control of the following season at the exact moment he worsened the relationship between the pair of them in 2008. obviously, it's all more complicated than that and casey would of course argue laguna didn't negatively affect his subsequent performances... but it certainly didn't help them. like, at the very worst valentino escalating tensions in 2008 is a complete net neutral. after 2009, them being bitchy to each other every other tuesday was completely competitively irrelevant beyond maybe affecting how they approached occasionally fighting for a podium position. hey, maybe casey used that feud to fire himself up through sheer spite throughout the later stages of his career, but that doesn't actually support his anti-feud stance - it's basically the exact same thing as what valentino does. they're both quite similar in that regard! always so hungry to prove a point, to show how someone else is wrong. kinda half the point with this feuding business is to get yourself going, get yourself motivated, yeah. he straight up openly admits to using yamaha's repeat rejection of him as a way of giving himself motivation, and at the end of the day that's really not all that different?

anyway, what else does casey say... oh yeah, that him and the other aliens were already kinda prepared for this and had learned vale's tricks. that valentino had only been able to get into the minds of the previous generation. welllllll *wiggles hand* sure, I mean, he did clearly have to change his approach... he couldn't just use the exact same playbook to get to them, either on-track or off-track. but that's why he did change up the playbook... again, whether you want to believe valentino won his final two titles 'in the head' rather than just through pure pace kinda depends on how you assess the evidence, but it is at the very least a debate. and, y'know, it's always worth remembering that valentino's most important mind games with casey didn't happen in a press conference... it was on the track. and the on-track stuff really is just embedded in how valentino approaches winning. speaking of aliens, this is what dani and jorge have said:

like, valentino's entire approach to his riding, even to the way he's setting his bike up, is deliberately about directly fucking with you... he's not actually always trying to be faster than you as much as he's trying to give himself the tools to make your life miserable, to pressure you into mistakes, etc etc... and again, especially with casey (if anything because he was so mentally sturdy), the off-track stuff was really just window dressing. (I know they bicker a lot after 2009 but it's just so fundamentally irrelevant to actual on-track competition.) so you can be aware of those tricks, but it also doesn't necessarily help you when someone's being nasty to you on-track in a way you just fully do not enjoy. which is what it was like for casey! for casey, a lot of this comes back to the truly unpleasant context of how he was perceived by the public, how he was treated as mentally weak or 'broken' or whatever partly because he had the misfortune of coming up against a bloke who had the reputation for breaking rivals. I think it's quite natural to end up with a bit of a hardliner 'actually I've never been mentally affected by a result in my life' stance - and of course casey is a lot tougher than a lot of people give him credit for. that being said. sometimes your rivals affect you, shit happens, it's part of the game. it's fundamentally a nice idea to think that valentino's tactics weren't just morally wrong but also ineffective, which is kind of the appeal of this narrative, right? you want to believe you're above that, you want to believe you were adequately prepared and wise to valentino's tactic. it's unsurprising and understandable that casey does tend to tell the story that way, but again it's *wiggles hand* also hard to describe it as completely factual

uh. what else. oh I'm thrilled casey does canonically know valentino and marc were friends, he has said he wasn't following motogp too much during that time period so you couldn't be sure of that. does this mean anything? does it tell you anything? well, no, but it's just a pleasing thought to me. I like that. oh also 'provoking particularly aggressive riders isn't a good idea' is kinda a funny take from casey? like, he of all people would hate the idea of being cowed by someone's reputation like that... casey's right that provoking fast riders can potentially be dangerous, but y'know I do think that's probably not news to anyone almost nine years later. um. that's all I've got I think

[gideonthefirst]

they've got to invent a my politics that are helpful in the current situation and not actively making it worse.

[bearsinpotatosacks]

Update on my Whumptober thoughts: Not all the prompts will be posted, I have all 31 planned out but I found out that you don't have to post all 31. If a fic is finished, I'll post it but there's some big beasts that I want to write properly instead of rush. Also, I might not even write all 31. I want the completionist title but I don't have the time nor energy to force myself to write all the prompts and I did it last year and it wasn't like life-changing. I like Whumptober because the prompts help my creativity, spark some inspiration (talking about my Delancey Brothers Fic) but the perfectionist in me just beats myself up about not getting enough fics done before October or not writing enough each day to get them finished and then writing fics that all sound the same or the ideas being kind of shitty because I'm forcing them. I want to do my ideas justice rather than mass produce shit I don't like because I feel I need to, it's a constant line I walk between "I want to write something well and that I'm proud of so might be inactive for a while on AO3" and "I want to get this idea out there so need to post a bunch of stuff now"

[princessofxianle]

so much you have added to fx backstory au in your head you say… please feel free to take this excuse to share to your heart’s content… 💐

alex from the future here: this started as a note i was gonna let rot in my drafts and turned into A WHOLE ASS SCENE WITH DIALOGUE AND E'RYTHIN so i decided to copy and paste it here... anyway i have THOUGHTS about feng xin's family and especially his SPITFIRE of an older sister, shen liang...

I HOPE YOU ENJOY THIS and omg thank you for sending an ask im overflowing with thoughts of them... see #fx backstory au for more

~

sometimes i like to think about young Shen Liang before her brother was born...

yknow that excited phase some girls have about babies when theyre like 13?

my girl was READY to be a big sister

ready doesnt even being to describe it...

"Xin-er!" she'd talk to Shen Wangxi's belly relentlessly as if he'd already been born... if he even was a "he"

she'd be happy with a didi or a meimei she did not care

she read every bit of prep material from the royal library at least 3 times over

she talked with her mom about how she'd be the best jiejie ever...

she was SO EXCITED

So much so that Shen Wangxi knew Shen Liang could take care of her brother.

That is, until Feng Xin was born...

The event essentially trades her mothers life for her brothers... Shen Liang has the capability to care for her didi, but she isn't too interested in the parasite that stole her mom from her...

But this "parasite" continues to grow more fond of her regardless of how horribly she treats him.

.

"Jiejie is family. I love my family. And Baba tells me all the time i need to protect the things I love. I'll protect you jiejie!" A tiny Feng Xin puffs out his chest and makes a face that he thinks will make him look tough.

"Like how you protected mama?" Shen Liang mutters to herself, standing up from the dirt she'd been kicked down into by that goodfornothing bully and uselessly patting dust off her robes before knocking past him.

"Enough, A-Liang. He's three, he doesn't understand."

No. You don't understand. "Get lost, old man." Shen Liang quips toward her father.

Feng Yang lets her leave. Teenagers. At least she was safe now. This harassment was getting out of hand. He'd hate to take it directly to the king.

"But..." a tiny voice pokes out from behind the contemplating Xianle general.

Feng Yang bends down to pick up his son and rest him on his hip.

Tiny hands grab the fabric of his robes as Feng Xin rubs his head against his fathers chest to comfort himself and he mumbles, "Jiejie... I'll protect you, jiejie, I promise."

Feng Yang's heart aches from his son's words. It swells in his chest until it almost pops and then...

"Baba?"

"Yes, Xin-er?" Feng Yang answers softly with a smile.

Feng Xin chews on the age-old words of the Feng family code, and then speaks. "Well... what does a man do... when he can't protect what he loves." His voice attempts to mimic the commanding tone of his fathers own.

Well... "He tries to get stronger."

Feng Xin's eyes brighten.

Feng Yang is blessed to have this child as his son.

"Baba?"

"Hm?"

"When will I be strong enough to protect jiejie?"

"I don't know." I wish I did. "Sometimes protecting someone is not about how strong you are." I wish I could protect her too. "Sometimes you can't be strong enough to protect someone who doesn't want to be protected."

"Even if you love them?"

"Even if you love them."

Feng Xin's tiny brows furrow in contemplation until his young mind hits a logical dead end. It doesn't make sense to him.

So...

Feng Xin does what he always does when he doesn't know what else to do. "Baba is silly. Of course jiejie wants me to protect her." He hopes.

He prays. Wishes. Believes. Much like the name his mother gave him implies, Feng Xin has faith.

He was born with it. And like any child with a gift from his mother, he'll never let it be taken from him.

Feng Yang tests him. "And how do you know she wants that?"

"She lets me peel her oranges!" Feng Xin looks down and excitedly acts out the motion with his hands.

Yeah, and then she doesn't feed you. It had been beyond difficult for Feng Yang to feel safe leaving Feng Xin in Shen Liang's care. Just the thought of him thinking this way about his daughter made his stomach churn. But recently, even Shen Liang's 'starvation as a form of discipline' was now the least of his concerns.

Oddly, Feng Xin never complained and the treatment went unnnoticed. It took a visit from the royal physician to tell Feng Yang his son was malnourished. Feng Xin never denied that his jiejie sometimes "forgot" to feed him, but he didn't stand for the accusations the physician made about her either. He adamantly refused to cooperate until Feng Yang had asked the man to conclude his visit with the reassurance he'd address his son's care. Stubborn. Just like his mother... Just like his sister too. Feng Xin made his baba promise to never make him see another doctor who talked bad about his jiejie. Feng Yang couldn't deny him.

The feeding was less of an issue now, given the new one (bruises popping up on his skin) but it was best not to bring up Shen Liang's new actions to the little one right now.

So Feng Yang simply says, "But she doesn't share her slices with you."

"I don't need them. I'm strong." He puffs out his chest again and then has the idea to flex his arms like he was heroically nocking an arrow on his toy bow. "Maybe if jiejie eats them, then she can be strong on her own and I don't have to protect her!"

"Maybe. But why do you keep peeling them for her?"

Feng Xin's voice mellows, as sincere as a 3 year old can, but he responds without missing a beat. "I really like peeling oranges for jiejie."

.

Shen Wangxi I don't deserve our son, Feng Yang thinks.

.

...more to come 🤭

[elegyofthemoon]

well. i finished ch 17 of hi3. but at what cost