#afriendlyirin

[quasi-normalcy]

15 Questions + 15 Friends

Thanks for the tag @shinraalpha

Are you named after anyone?

No. I used to claim to have been named after Captain Kirk, bit no, and certainly not anymore.

When was the last time you cried?

Last night. Finished Midnight Mass on Netflix.

Do you have kids?

No. And that's kind of a shame, though I suspect that I mainly feel that way out of familial obligation.

What sports do you play/have you played?

competitive swimming, water polo, fencing, kung fu (to the extent that this is a sport). None recently.

Do you use sarcasm?

Certainly not! Why, I'm not even capable of such an act!

What is the first thing you notice about people?

Voices more than anything.

What's your eye color?

Blue

Scary movies or happy endings?

I'm fine with both, although I confess some disappointment when a scary movie ends happily.

Any talents?

None. I go through life with no skills whatever.

Where were you born?

Somewhere far away from here, there's a frozen plain on which two shallow, muddy rivers intersect south of a vast lake. I was born there.

What are your hobbies?

I write a lot; I play the violin.

Do you have any pets?

Not here :(

How tall are you?

Tall enough that it's the first thing people notice about me.

Favorite subject in school?

Oh, all of them. Science, English, History. Math has it's moments. Made choosing a major difficult.

Dream job?

One day, I'm out in public and someone asks me "Are you [name]?" And I say "Yes, I'm [name]." And then they pump my hand and tell me that my book changed their entire understanding of the universe.

Tagging?

@ajax-daughter-of-telamon @who-canceled-roger-rabbit @batbrobeyond @wordcubed @tirlaeyn @alethinephrine @templatelord @afriendlyirin @thelongestway etc.

[goingrampant]

I pulled the response to the tweet about an attack on a protester encampment for being insensitive in wedging a general point into a discussion of a specific incident with a lot of emotion attached. Thanks to @afriendlyirin for arguing me into seeing that.

[bunglepaws]

I posted 2,533 times in 2022

That's 2,373 more posts than 2021!

81 posts created (3%)

2,452 posts reblogged (97%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@thecrateofaus

@liria10

@afriendlyirin

@sonjuponju

@everythingfox

I tagged 482 of my posts in 2022

#furry - 190 posts

#fave - 49 posts

#this is a gender - 42 posts

#puella magi madoka magica - 40 posts

#the shitshow - 33 posts

#politics - 25 posts

#bungles speaks - 22 posts

#commission - 11 posts

#mueue - 10 posts

#my stuff - 7 posts

Longest Tag: 114 characters

#the rivera manuscript and the various references to something about the homeworld's sun being *wrong* fascinate me

I sent 7 gifts in 2022

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

TEMPORAL SALMON [Lesser Species: Participants] The temporal salmon, despite its name, is not related to the fish. It is a rare species of space-born, time-faring wildlife, named after Earth's salmon for its instinct to swim upstream to their birth place. The most interesting aspect of the species is the paradox of its birth. Temporal salmon hatch from eggs and consume the carcasses of their parent. At the end of their life they then return to lay a single egg and die, in the exact place where they were hatched, and at the time their parent laid the egg that would hatch into them. A single individual becomes both parent and child, dying in order to ensure that its own body decays around the egg for the inevitable hatchling to consume at birth. This combination of nature and paradox is so unusual that it's been likened to a 'causal ballet'.

It's this very paradox which makes temporal salmon so dangerous for certain time-active cultures, who avoid these rare individuals for fear of the repercussions of disturbing the paradox: a single displacement of a temporal salmon carcass could theoretically cause a massive disturbance in local space-time, or even create a rift leading into another continuum. The obvious exclusion to this prudence is Faction Paradox, who views the temporal salmon as both a holy animal and the ultimate hunting trophy. It's not surprising that the Faction should ignore the risk. The group's founder, Grandfather Paradox, once claimed to have personally killed the only known specimen, a legendary creature of immense size which once swam the timelines of the Spiral Politic. The creature's skull is said to be mounted over a fireplace in the heart of the Eleven-Day Empire.

11 notes - Posted April 27, 2022

#4

The Book of the Enemy (creature/object) is still one of the more fucked concepts I've read about in Faction Paradox books. Definitely not the worst/scariest but taking a real thing and turning it entirely fictional screws with me

18 notes - Posted April 13, 2022

#3

68 notes - Posted April 19, 2022

#2

Purchase Your First Private Flying Barbecue Bus Today

308 notes - Posted June 26, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

1,105 notes - Posted April 26, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[dappercritter]

Legend of Zelda for the ask meme!

(Based on this meme.)

The first character I first fell in love with: Zelda (any version). It might be cliché but considering the first Zelda game I ever played from start to finish was Skyward Sword, I was spoiled graced with quite possibly the most intimate, romantic, and overall enchanting introduction to the legendary princess of destiny. She may not be the strongest Zelda character-wise (that honour is a toss-up between TP and BOTW Zelda) but SS gave her the most time for character development and to establish a strong bond with Link (ie. YOU, the player). Thus, I got a pretty good reason care about the franchise namesake. The character I never expected to love as much as I do now: Beedle. I kinda liked the one we were introduced to in Wind Waker. Just a humble shopkeeper and his boat who occasionally offers great deals and wears a neat little helmet. The Skyward Sword version (technically the first that I met) was a real charmer too with his flying shop, love of bugs, surprising secret vocabulary, and his method of dealing with window-shoppers. But I really fell in love with him was in Breath of the Wild. I liked his little scarf and his very big beetle (heh)-themed backpack, he’s got a great selection of items, deals in good prices, and has a wonderful little crush on Link. While that last one doesn’t go very far, I always looked forward to visiting his shop. The character everyone else loves that I don’t: Mipha. I don’t hate her or anything—nothing of the sort!—but I do think that she’s not as interesting as the fanbase, or at least in her debut game. (Note: I haven’t played or read/watched anything about the Champion’s Ballad or Age of Calamity yet, so I can’t comment on any developments made in those games.) As you may have already guessed, or soon will, while I love a good Zelink love story, I love it when Link gets to be close with someone besides the princess and even get to take a sweet little detour on the way to their destiny. The thing is that either way, I like it when the love interest has her own distinct personality, and their relationship gets a healthy amount of development. I don’t feel either of those things with Mipha. She’s a very shy, demure, and gentle who plays the “childhood friend with a hidden crush” role in the love triangle with Zelda and Link. Maybe it’s that she’s a very reserved character and Link is the most reserved character; maybe it’s that she’s already dead and you only learn about their past while nothing changes in the present; maybe it’s just how compared to her brother and her father’s big personalities and bigger builds, she and her more human-like feminine traits feel more boring… but to me she just doesn’t feel that interesting. I do like the bond between her and her (admittedly more appealing) brother, Sidon. The character I love that everyone else hates: Zant. Call me crazy but even his character is either inconsistent or has a rushed arc, I find Zant to be a pretty interesting villain with a lot of untapped potential. I love his design, even when he takes off his cool evil helmet of darkness, which I also love for it’s abstract appearance and retractable features. While I would have liked to explore an AU where Zant was the one true villain of Twilight Princess and old Ganondorf got to take a backseat, I do think that for the most part Zant is an effective villain with a disturbing aura, vendettas against all three of our heroes, and an interesting twist of an arc. Even after you realize that he’s just a pretender to the throne relying on a legacy villain for power, it’s fascinating to see how much his entitlement feeds into his character. When he finally breaks down like a spoiled brat, you still get the impression for just how dangerous his instability makes him. A letdown he might be, but there’s no denying just how dangerous someone with great power and no restraint can be. Heck, there’s something to be said about his fervent devotion to his dark god, Ganondorf as well—and the fatal turn it takes for them both when, in what is my opinion, what happens when the pawn realizes they’re

king is as a big a disappointment as they are. The character I used to love but don’t any longer: Fi. With Skyward Sword being my first game, I had a soft spot for all the characters, but Fi is the only one where the nostalgia was the only thing that made me like her for the longest time. Once I started looking at the game objectively, I realized just how truly annoying Fi was. Despite the feels the game attempts to invoke, you never grow close to Fi and she never comes to understand what it’s like to be human from travelling with Link. (Ironic given that SS Link is one of the most expressive versions of the character.) All Fi does is either point out the obvious or over-analyze the obvious as she tells you where to go in painstaking detail. Every time she popped up, it ground my subsequent playthroughs to a halt. That, along with the amount of backtracking in the game, is what keeps me from revisiting it. The only good thing I think I could say about her is that she helped inspire Toby Fox to give us the best goat mom in Undertale. The character I would totally smooch: Midna. Oh yeah. Are your surprised? But in all honesty, I do love Midna’s character …yes, and her design. (Now shut up.) Anyways, I love mischievous characters in general and, what else can I say really? Twilight Princesses’s story did a great job at making you care about Midna. She’s my favourite in the series beyond a shadow of a doubt and she deserves all the genuine, non-horny love she can. The character I’d want to be like: Kass. Being a travelling singer who brings his accordion everywhere who studies legends and aids the travelling hero of legend (even if I don’t recognize them at first) would be the coolest thing ever. Being a big ol’ parrot-man would be neat too. The character I’d slap: Tingle. It’s Tingle. If he’s not behaving inappropriately around… well, everyone, he’s charging ridiculous prices to decipher your maps. He might not be a total creep but he is a shifty little bugger. A pairing that I love: TP!Link X Midna. Oh yeah. You know how I said Midna was my favourite companion, thanks in part to all the time we got to spend with her? Well, that goes double for all the time she spends with Link throughout the game. The way Link slowly earns her trust and convinces her to change for the better, and how she opens herself up to him. They way they put their trust in each other… Golly gee whiz, it’s enough to make my heart melt no matter how many times I play through the game or how many time I’ve gotten stuck on the guardian puzzle seen the ending. A pairing that I despise: Can’t think of any, thankfully.

[eruhamster]

"Progressives lost because the system is corrupt" does not change the fact that progressives lost. You don't have to like Biden, but he's what we have to work with for the next 4 years. I would prefer we make any progress at all than continuing to let the world burn until you "eventually" get the candidates you like. You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want.

Bitch, progressives didn’t lose. Like I said, democrats who support M4A won down-ballot. The democrats who lost (and were responsible for losing us house seats!) were all shit-ass liberal corporatists like Joe who were against M4A. If you’re so fucking blind that you think progressives will continue to lose, good fucking luck when Joe inevitably loses in 4 years to some chucklefuck worse than Trump(or Trump himself) because people are crying out for populism and will turn to Republican populism if not given a real progressive option. 

But you probably don’t understand that because you’re so braindead you somehow believe that politics just means ‘the presidency.’ 

[downtroddendeity]

@afriendlyirin​ (Screencapped because Tumblr seems to be trying to make it as difficult as possible to see and respond to replies these days)

Yep! You can test it out by changing Aht’s equipment. Here’s what the damage numbers look like if you stack magic bonuses on her:

and here’s what it does to the same enemies if you stack attack with as little magic as possible:

Both of Eruca’s mana bursts are also nonelemental magic incorrectly labeled as physical, and interestingly, Gafka’s Lightning Hammer MB is the only physical-based elemental attack in the game.

And if they didn’t want her to be able to do straight damage then they sure messed up with Cross Star.

YEET

[tezsaltblogsrhpc]

Nope. I was wrong. Considering they’re the least evil of the main villains, naturally they’re the ones PC decided needed to stay dead.

[comment-exchange]

Do you have an AO3 page? I feel that would be helpful, since AO3 is easier to search than Tumblr.

No, I considered making one but somehow I never did. Maybe I will tackle that next. Thanks for the suggestion! 

[shinesurge]

Would you like to exposit on why you like The Vast? It's never been a particularly interesting power to me, so I'm curious to hear your pitch.

ooh i'd love to!

SO I'm gonna preface this with the fact that my comic is basically my life and it bleeds over into my thinking about pretty much everything, and since the main mechanics of said comic are so very close to The Vast to begin with I'm positive my impressions of the thing have probably drifted considerably from TMA canon lmaoo. idk if other vast folks will agree with my reading but it's chill it’s fine i have a degree in extrapolation

I know the usual concrete symbols of vastness are Goin Fast or Falling or "oh jesus christ space is Too Big", which are really good physical representations, but I think it's even more interesting if you dig down to the common thread that makes all those things so visceral. I liken The Vast to the same thing that makes humans become religiously scrupulous or the way a manic episode feels, like you've brushed up close to something that's way way too much and it's more than you can possibly bear so you break a little bit to compensate for it. But also the breaking can be good? Like yeah the hysterical terror of being caught up in the spin of the universe OR the thing you do at 3AM when you cycle through the extreme of every emotion in two minutes sucks dick, but crying from happiness or feeling overwhelmed by the collective good feelings of a crowd enjoying something is also Vast, the feeling of Flow is Vast. The highs are high and the lows are low, and if it doesn't kill you it breaks your intensity sliders; you never really come all the way back down and you get obsessed with finding things that can wring that kind of response out of you again. I don't like thinking of it as a Mean thing necessarily, it's just so huge and incomprehensible it can't help but fuck you up by intruding on your existence to any extent. Love it, love that, enough to write about it for the rest of my life.also looking at megalophobia-type stuff makes my skin crawl and deeply upsets me but like in the fun way lmao

[antialiasis]

On the Dexit controversy, I honestly wonder if Pokemon would be better if every gen was like Unova, effectively a reboot with a completely unique dex. When I play new Pokemon games, I'm always in it for the new ones, not for the ones I've already seen half a dozen times. But then, I don't get very attached to my pokemon and don't try to carry them between games.

Different strokes, but personally I wouldn’t like that, even though I don’t really do the transfer thing. Trying out the new Pokémon is fun, but getting to see some of our old favorites spruced up with new moves and rendered with better graphics is a part of it too. I know I felt less invested in Gen V with no old Pokémon (though part of it was probably just that Unova’s design aesthetic wasn’t my favorite overall).

[thecolossalennui]

afriendlyirin replied to your post: afriendlyirin replied to your post “the idea...

Well then I don’t really understand the issue in people shipping them? Aang/Katara was ooky because they were explicitly romantic as kids, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ship characters who already have a working relationship. I know it’s annoying to have people look at the boy and girl leads and immediately assume they have to hook up, but… I don’t see what other options you have if you want to ship Steven with someone.

oh yeah this isn’t a “your ship is bad” post but rather a “I find it icky” one

[quasi-normalcy]

tag nine people you want to catch up with/get to know better

tagged by: @shinraalpha

Last Song: I Like Bananas (Because They Have No Bones), George Elrick (1936)

Last Film: Beyond Re-Animator (2003)

Currently Reading(or last read): Knowledge and Social Imagery, by David Bloor (1973). I'm afraid that I have little time to read anything that isn't dense and academic at the moment.

Currently Watching: Star Wars Rebels and For All Mankind

Current Obsession: My obsession with Star Trek is lifelong and all-consuming.

no pressure tag spot: @vague-humanoid @terriwriting @afriendlyirin @northirish @noctumsolis @ajax-daughter-of-telamon @evcentric-posts @macleod @bitterbisexual

[goingrampant]

Note to self: Do NOT post if having more alcohol than a few glasses of wine or bottle of beer...

Sorry for last night. That was a fractured version of me.

Thanks to @afriendlyirin and @thatonemushroom for their messages of support. Sorry it came to that.

[norisus]

afriendlyirin

I'd be interested to see you turn this one into a bird

A tempting endeavor, tho I prefer to stick to bird-ifying Pokemon that are either inanimate objects, or ones that have a very loose design with no strong or distinct animal base!  c:

[dappercritter]

Adventure Time for the ask meme!

(Based on this meme.)

The first character I first fell in love with: Marceline the Vampire Queen. How could I not? She’s so cool, so pretty, she’s a rockstar vampire queen who’s half demon. The more we got to know about her and her past, the more I grew to love her. Furthermore, as much as I used to like pairing her with Finn, I’ve really come to enjoy them as just friends, and I like her relationship with Princess Bubblegum even more! The character I never expected to love as much as I do now: Ice King. Or should I say, Simon Petrikov! (Big surprise, right?) I liked Ice King back when he was a simple comedic villain and one of my favourites that, but I’ve come to like him even more. Once the backstory dropped all bets were off. I just wanted to see the poor guy get the help he needed and gets his Betty back while making things right with everyone he wronged while under the influence of his curse. That he’s also a big nerd with mental health issues who writes fanfiction certainly makes him relatable too. The character everyone else loves that I don’t: Can’t think of anyone, for better or worse. The character I love that everyone else hates: Princess Bubblegum. I guess it helps that the hate on her has dialed down something since she learned her lessons towards the end of the show, but even when she was in her (understandably hateable) dictator phase, I was just waiting for her to fall from her perch, learn some humility, and get what was coming to her. Then she could heal and get the help she needed so badly. And make it right with her awesome vampire gf. The character I used to love but don’t any longer: Tree Trunks. How does such a cute little grandma type get sketchier and sketchier and get away with it? The character I would totally smooch: Huntress Wizard. What can I say? I do like those mysterious wild and noble women of the woods. Also I do like a women could kick my butt. Well, that and I’m pretty sure she’s a bit too old for Finn. (Am I the only who thinks that?) The character I’d want to be like: Jake the Dog. Man, what isn’t there to love about Jake? Insightful, fun, caring, protective, a great brother and friend, and not too bad for a boyfriend either! Could have done a little better as a dad, but well, sometimes that just how things turn out I guess. He still did pretty great all things considered. The character I’d slap: Martin Mertens (AKA Finn’s “Dad”). Nuff’ said. I don’t know what happened between trying to protect Baby Finn and getting imprisoned in outer space but, WOW. Never thought I’d see a dad make an effort to be terrible. A pairing that I love: Bubbline. Sure it had a rough start when we first saw it, but you got to give them credit for making all that progress and managing to come out even stronger and even more precious. They’re both strong, beautiful, and crazy awesome women who deserve each other in all the best ways. I couldn’t be happier they finally got back together. A pairing that I despise: Flame Princess X Cinnamon Bun. There, I said it. I don’t know if it’s canon or not, and it’s probably not, but I just do not know how or even if this makes any sense. Is there an age gap? I don’t know, all I know is that this, and Finn’s knucklehead period, was the final nail in the coffin of Finn and Flame Princess’s relationship.

[unsoundedcomic]

Is Juste isolated from the khert? Does that run the risk of permadeath if you die inside it?

Yes, Juste is isolated from the khert. The Black Tongues famously reject religion though, so they don’t believe in reincarnation or the permanence of a supernatural soul. All death is permadeath. Dying outside the khert spares their mortal memories an eternity sitting in a spectral trash heap degrading to insane ghosts and fish food. Visiting patrons would probably be more skittish about this, but it would be terribly gauche for them to exhibit it. They want to be the most freethinking, modern, independent people of their age, punching people into trays of macarons aside.