#and also it's a big old ocean world with islands because

[niobiumao3]

Six Sentence Sunday

Phee scoffed. “Splitting? Please, Scaleback, I’d be fronting crew and transport. I’ll give you a percentage as a finder’s fee.”

“Mmmmm. Fair enough.” Cid tapped the side of her glass. “Twenty-five.”

Phee narrowed her eyes. “What, am I your sugar mama now? Eight.”

“A sugar mama would make it an even fifty. Twenty.”

“No a sugar mama would ask how you lost your perfectly good crew. Ten.”

Cid bared her teeth. “Fifteen,” she snapped. Phee could tell she’d drawn blood by the lack of additional commentary.

It was more than Phee wanted to shave off, but the bounty was high enough to make it tolerable. Added to that was how easy it should be—how much trouble could one alchemist be?

[skatingbi]

Yo we out here with some more Ace lives AU but i'll make them little bullet points so I dont have to write a whole essay. Enjoy my little headcanons!

Warning: Theres. So many. Im not sorry tho lmao

Ace joins the strawhats after the time skip, nobody really minds and theyre happy to spend time with luffy's older brother. He quickly becomes best friends with Nami. I just feel it in my soul that they would gossip together.

Both Ace and Luffy suffer from awful PTSD symptoms after Marineford. With Luffy, his crew eventually learn how to help him. With Ace, though, he only has Luffy to lean on for support until the crew get aquanted with him.

Actually, to add onto that bc im a sucker for acesan, Sanji is the first after Luffy to reach out during one of his bad days when even really small triggers can make Ace spiral into a panic attack.

More acesan sorry lmao. Ace is usually either out on the figure head of the sunny looking at the ocean when Luffy isnt occupying that spot, in the gallery when Sanji is working, or just out on the deck laying on the grass. He especially likes being around sanji in the gallery.

Pre timeskip Ace is extremely different than this AU's Ace because yes he's silly and carries an air of confidence with him still, but he's never shirtless around others anymore. For a long while, Ace doesnt leave the ship or pick fights. His confidence is a facade for a long time.

Depression hits ace like a truck in this AU and its only eased with the help of Luffy and Sanji. Chopper also helps the best he can with what he's got. Ace is grateful for this, and eventually his old self starts to emerge more and more. Luffy is there with him the entire time.

Ace has insomnia, but so does Sanji and Zoro. He'll hang out with them during late night hours either on watch with zoro sharing stories or with Sanji talking to him while he's doing prep work or inventory. He'll probably also fend off luffy when his little brother tries to break into the locked fridge lmao

But more funny headcanons!! Im getting depressing here sorry!! Ace will mess around with Luffy and entertain him before meal times by play fighting. Their asses will be duking it out on the deck and Chopper will be all concerned and Zoro and Nami will be like "Siblings." Like thats the most obvious answer in the world.

Tbh, the crew members with any type of sibling or sibling bond will get it. Luffy will deadass try to steal Ace's food and Ace will smack his hand lightly with haki and Luffy will dramatically exclaim how mean his big brother is.

"Ace is so mean! I'll starve to death!" "Yeah, sure, you little menace"

Ace regaining strength over his devil fruit powers by making little shapes out of fire for chopper, luffy, and usopp. Franky and brook join the group to give ace prompts. It becomes a nightly occurance at this point.

The first time he decides to go shirtless in front of the crew, they realize his old tattoo is replaced by scar tissue that covers nearly his entire back. Nobody says anything, but I think Franky and Nami would be really understanding. Also luffy. Luffy would be like "We match! Ace has a cool scar like I do!" and it reassures him but also breaks his heart simultaneously.

Ace eating nearly as much as luffy and Sanji being like "Are you sure youre not blood related? Because youre both gonna run my kitchen dry"

Ace not really having a defined role in the crew and them not really minding it. Ace floats around basically. It kind of fits him more that way since he knows a bit of everything. He'll look at maps with nami to chart a course to the next island, He'll fight alongside zoro and sanji, he'll tell usopp about different ways to use combustion and heat in weapons or ammo, etc.

Ace and nami using the power of their good looks to scam people lmao and ace being able to swindle men and women. Nami is impressed and also jealous.

Luffy growing his hair out so him and Ace match, but luffy apparently has curlier hair than Ace so its just a fluffy mess until usopp caves and teaches them how to actually take care of their hair (luffy does not absorb a single thing and ace now has to help luffy with his hair when it gets as long as his)

Ace noticing one day how zoro looks at luffy and being like "yikes...you got it bad, man" and zoro just being like "SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP-" but ace is fucking cackling and now zoro cant be too mad about that. He's still embaressed as fuck about it though.

Expanding on that actually: Ace actually being supportive because he knows how loyal zoro is. He isnt worried. Plus, Luffy is extremely strong and it takes a lot to actually hurt him. So he's like "dude you gotta just tell him straight up he is dense as hell"

Ace the ultimate wingman for zoro. Not luffy, though. That's what Nami is there for. Him an nami are definitely working together and placing bets on when and who asks who out with robin, usopp, sanji, and franky. I wont say what they chose for their bet but robin definitely wins.

BUT luffy, nami, zoro, robin, usopp and franky place bets on Ace and Sanji. Ace is never subtle. He flirts openly and is proud of it. Sanji is very subtle with ace, though. The crew immediately see past his bullshit of trying to be straight. Its painful to watch. Poor sanji is trying so hard to remain closeted but the closet is literally glass. I wont say who betted what as per my last bullet point, but surprisingly zoro won. Everyone (nami) is outraged by this incident. Luffy is here for a good time.

The crew playing card games except they learn sometimes ace cannot handle flammable objects because he will burn them accidentally. Competitive card games are now banned if ace is playing.

Ace is also banned from using his devil fruit powers while sparring on the deck. The poor grass on there has been burned so many times. Nami has kicked his ass over it.

Ace and zoro get really competitive. Not like zoro and sanji, but they'll spar without weapons and at least one of them will leave with a busted lip or eyebrow and a lecture from chopper. Theyre chill though they just forget to hold back on their punches. Ace one time used haki and had to help franky fix the deck afterwards.

[entomjinx]

ONE PIECE CHAPTER 1113 SPOILERS!!!

It's tagged, it's in bold, if you didn't see it that's on you, but I'm sorry. (I'm also a little sick so sorry for how this starts to turn a little insane at the end.)

The reveal makes perfect sense. I've seen a few people struggle to figure out where it came from, so I'm gonna explain why it makes perfect sense and then pop off with some silly theory.

The first hint at the fact that the One Piece world is sinking exists all the way back in Long Ring Long Island.

That seems like an odd place to start, but it's the first time we're shown how drastic the tides of the ocean in the One Piece world can change. It's enough to separate entire parts of an island, causing it to appear as separate islands, once every year.

This implies that the tides change drastically over the course of much longer periods than it does in the real world.

After that, we get to Water Seven and discover that it's sinking, and that the Aqua Laguna is getting worse every year. We also know that it's caused by the water receding at Long Ring Long island. We're also outright told that they want to make the city float to stop the sinking problem.

We also, much later, see just how high Wano is in altitude.

Knowing that the Redline is so tall that it cannot be passed by any ship, cannot be broken through, and that Mariejois is sat right on top of it only adds to why it makes sense.

The world isn't "sinking," those some islands technically are(Water Seven, modeled after Venice), the tides are going to rise exponentially, and fast.

The force of the water would instantly drown most people, and those who survived would be those who could get to higher altitude islands, the sky islands, Fishman Island, or the Redline.

And because I know someone will try to point this out: land bound plant life can temporarily survive underwater, so Ohara's 5000 year old library tree would be fine for a a bit while submerged. There's lots of places with high tides who's plant life is just fine. (This also could explain why they'd be so willing to throw the books into the water. Not only was it to save them from the fire, but many of them had likely been submerged for long periods of time before. They knew the books would be find in the end because they had record of it. And well, it's mentioned in the chapter that Vegapunk means to finish what Ohara started.)

This would also explain how thorough the government was able to be with wiping out information from the void century. If only a few places can survive, then few things that tell the truth will survive, and even fewer people.

Do I think I'm 100% correct about any of this? Or course not, it's Oda. It's One Piece. Things are pretty much never predicted with 100% accuracy. But that's my thoughts on why it makes sense. Now we get into theory:

I have several points to make, so I'm going to write out the shortest ones first.

-This would, completely unironically, explain some of the centuries long racism campaign against fishman. They have no reason to fear the high tides. They will survive no matter what happens on the surface, and that scares the humans who cannot.

-I think that the extreme tide is a part of why the bridge is being built in Tequila Wolf. I believe the bridges purposes is to connect all the highest points of the world so there's no need for ships to carry them. This way, the Celestial Dragons will still have access to more slaves, produce, and anything they can't get within Mariejois on their own during the time period when everyone drowns.

-and now we get to the big one:

I think that the reason the 20 kings and their people destroyed the ancient kingdom is because the ancient kingdom had a way to survive the high tide while keeping the maximum number of people safe in the process, and while being able to save many more people. They refused to ask for help, and were instead afraid of the power the ancient kingdom held, so they sought to destroy it.

I think that the ancient "weapons" were instead a means of survival, and the reason they were hidden is because the 20 kings would have used them as weapons instead. We don't know much about the ancient kingdom, so much of this is speculation.

I think Pluton was a large enough ship that it could carry the entire kingdom. We've already seen some massive ships in One Piece, and Iceburg intends to turn the entirety of Water Seven into a ship, so the idea of an island sized ship isn't all that odd.

If you continue to think about it, why did none of the Beast Pirates manage to find Pluton while searching for the poneglyph in Wano? I have two theories for this based on the fact that we're told Wano would have to open it's borders in order to get Pluton. If the walls would need to be torn down, then we can continue to assume that Pluton is massive.

Theory one is that Pluton is is hidden within the mountain itself, and that the mountain was man-made to hide the ship. Not only would the walls need to come down, but the mountain itself would have to be destroyed. They would also need a way to survive the high tide without it, so creating a mountain that is high enough in altitude to keep them safe would have been a necessity. I think this is the more believable of the two theories.

Theory Two is that Pluton is Wano. The entire island is the ship, and many of Wano's people descended from the people of the ancient kingdom or those they rescued. This one is much less likely, but it's still a possibility in my mind.

We know that Poseidon was the former mermaid princess, and that the current one is Shirahoshi. She can control the sea kings. Why would this be important? Because if everywhere floods, then the sea kings, who are already very large creatures, suddenly have an influx of room to move, food to eat, and places to lay eggs. It would cause a population spike. *However,* that would cause an ecological disaster within the food chain. The sudden influx of sea kings would be desperate for any food they can get their hands on, and many would likely die of starvation. This means they need some way to repel them from the large ship.

We don't know anything about Uranus yet, so I've nothing for you.

Another thing we know about the ancient kingdom is that they seemed to be friendly with everyone, or at least it's implied via how many friends Joy Boy made.

Fishman: Along with the bonus of having Poseidon, the fishman also have access to the tree resin from Sabaody. Should the ship(Puton) or the ancient kingdom ever need to submerge in order to keep people safe or to have a temporary air bubble, They'd be safe.

Lunarians: The people who originally lived on top of the redline. Sinee the redline is high enough to not sink, it would have made sense for them to be trade partners.

Skypians and Shandians: Another race with wings. if the tides really got too high, then they could join them in the sky sea for a time. They could also trade with them.

Minks: Zunesha was a friend of Joyboy's. We don't know much else about that situation, but it's likely that Zunesha is plenty tall enough to keep the minks from drowning, and they could have traded often as well. Maybe Zunesha was even able to do something similar to the giants.

The Giants: This feels like the most important one to me, and not just because of recent chapters. Obviously the giants think very highly of Nika/Joyboy, but it's also very likely that Elbaf is tall enough to survive the high tide, and if not, the the giants themselves are. If you look at what's known about current giants, some of them are tall enough to walk along the sea floor, and the ancient giants were so large that it's said they pulled and moved continents.

Why is that bit important? Because a ship the size of an entire island would likely need a lot more than sails buoyancy to move quickly. The ancient kingdom was pulled by the giants. They moved to different areas to rescue people and to trade so that life continued while the tide was at it's highest point.

Another random thing that supports this is the giant's vehement hatred towards Charlotte Linlin. She has Totto Land, which is supposed to be a place where all races live in harmony, but it would be a mockery of what the ancient kingdom was like, and for giants, who live about 300 years, that's only a few generations back. They would still have stories about the ancient kingdom and remember the truth.

Again, I don't think anything I predict will ever be 100% accurate, but I hope you enjoyed my rambling nonetheless.

[cerastes]

i have not gone through the stream vod of arknights, but did you enjoy eblana and her not-quite-that-much-fucked-up-evilitude?

We didn't read that in the stream but I did read that after the stream by myself and I Liked The Event quite a bit!

It goes without saying that I went into it with a lot of enthusiasm because I've loved Reed as a character since her release, and I really wanted to know What Was Her Deal. We get some of it in the main story, since she's tied to the Victoria arc, but her getting an event specifically as a new character in another class is fascinating because it would, logically speaking, serve as a character piece more so than a big stakes event. This is what was delivered, so I couldn't be happier.

It's not that I dislike big stakes or grander scale stories in Arknights -- the Abyssal Hunters arc and the Sui arc are my favorites! -- it's just, sometimes, I really want to know more about the characters more so than everything that surrounds them. Character pieces help understand the grander scale with a lot more emotional weight, because if done right, I'm now emotionally invested in the character and their overarching goal, not just the goal as the framework for the story. For example, 'Maria Nearl' was first and foremost a character piece, which then informs the overarching Kazimierz arc, so by the time Near Light rolls in, not only do I know what we're fighting for, I know who we're fighting for and why we are doing so, I know Maria's motivations, efforts, struggles, and trials, and so, I am invested in wanting to see her succeed. 'Maria Nearl' being a character piece doesn't mean it ONLY centered on Maria and nothing else, it sets up the scene and the cast, but through the lens of someone in the story as opposed to through the effects of events in the story.

What The Firelight Casts does a little inversion in the overall structure compared to 'Maria Nearl': It's a character piece after the bigger scale narrative. We know what the bigger picture is... But what about this key character in the whole story? And will knowing about this character recontextualize or add even more meat to what we already know? With this in mind, let's talk about it:

Reed detests her circumstances, because Reed had very simple, domestic desires: She wanted a simple, quiet life reading and writing poetry, immersing herself in words and stories. She didn't have any grander aspirations, experiences, or desires beyond "loving poetry" because she was a simple child when she got her head pushed under an ocean of conspiracies and was drowned in them. Since she didn't have the strength of character to really do anything in such a horrifying world, her sister, Eblana, endowed with far stronger character, made her her body double. Reed never questioned it, because she had nothing else going on for her, but the more atrocities she was forced to commit as "The Leader", the more she hated it, and herself for not having it in her to stand up to Dublinn.

Hence why she attempted suicide via standing in an open field that was currently being bombarded. In a turn of events she couldn't have predicted, she was saved by Outcast, and was sent to Rhodes for recovery. She then spent some time in Rhodes Island, recovering, but also, learning. It's noted in her Files that she'd spend a significant amount of time pestering the medical teams in RI for knowledge in the clinical fields. She also requested a new weapon to her specifications, because she hates her spear. This may seem a matter of preference, until you realize that the spear is just Eblana's old weapon, just furthering exactly how much of an un-person she was. She'd use her sister's name, her sister's title, her sister's reputation, her sister's authority, even her sister's damn weapon.

Her chosen codename, "Reed", comes as no surprise: She explicitly says it's because that's how she is: Bland, an accessory, unremarkable, insignificant, like reeds by the river. In this event, we also learn another reason why "Reed" is apt for Loughshinny: Uncontrollably flammable if set ablaze.

Reed was terrified of her own powers. She is a direct descendant of the Red Dragon of Tara, and has insane innate power, namely, power over life itself: The way her flames work is explicitly not fire-aspected Arts: Her Arts allow her to inject pure life into objects and creatures, and the consequence of overcharging skin, muscle tissue, etc with so much life energy so fast and strongly is that it becomes unstable and explodes into raw energy, generating fire as a consequence. It's also why parts of her body, like her tail and her chest, seem to be constantly "ablaze": She is literally overflowing with the essence of life at all times, to the point it hurts her, and coming into contact with her means exploding. She is an almost perfect weapon. She hates it. Even her Rhodes Island evaluation files basically describe her as a stupidly powerful individual.

There's only one thing she doesn't regret about her time in Eblana's Dublinn: She really does care for Tarans, and wants to do anything in her power to help them. The reason she put up with being used and abused in Dublinn (about the only person that showed Reed any kindness in Dublinn was Harmonie, and even then she claims it's because she's interested in Reed and that she may have use for her) was because, Reed told herself, "at least it's for the Tarans". But Reed is not stupid, and over the time, realized that Eblana doesn't mind sacrificing countless Tarans that trust her if it means securing an advantage. That's when Reed decided she'd rather get blown to pieces by artillery rather than continue doing horrible things for someone that doesn't even care about the people that she claims to fight for.

Reed in the event is trying to help this very "little guy", this very scorned Taran, find a foothold. Her story here is, by all means, low stakes for the most part, but it's important in understanding who Reed has finally resolved to become: Her time in Rhodes Island and her new Arts unit allows her to far, far more precisely control her Arts, and now she can use VERY controlled bursts of her Arts to inject life into others without sending their living tissue into disarray, effectively becoming a potent healer. The wounded Tarans even remark that while she didn't give them the most involved treatment for their wounds, they still felt as good as new: It's because Reed isn't doing more than basic first aid, and using this as a disguise to her carefully injecting their wounds with life energy. For Reed, this is massive: She's finally able to like her innate Arts, an intrinsic part of herself, for the first time, because she's finally not using it to turn people to ashes or make them violently explode. She can finally do things differently, and without Eblana pulling her strings, she's finally able to do as she wishes. She ends up creating her very own "Dublinn", with a few Tarans, and looks to the future to do what she never thought she could do, and that's what I really loved: It's a small scale event, but it makes it very clear that from here on, Reed not only has a purpose, she has agency over herself, and finally, finally, she is her own person.

The final "map" of the event was fantastic, narratively speaking: It's a fight with Eblana entirely within her mind, with Eblana wearing a mask in the first phase. Eblana's mechanics involve killing her own units to empower herself, representative of how she's completely willing to kill Tarans for the purposes of Dublinn without any regret, then, in the second phase, she discards her mask and sets every reed in the map ablaze: No matter how much Eblana speaks of loving her and saying she's important to her, Reed has finally come to terms that Eblana WILL simply sacrifice even her when the moment comes, just as she has no issue setting the world on flames if it furthers her desires. The entirety of the map is just Reed finally coming to terms that if she wants to help the Tarans, in her way, she inevitably will come to blows with Eblana at some point, and that there's no space for hesitation, because Eblana sure as hell won't hesitate.

What The Firelight Casts is ultimately a high-impact bildungsroman in which our protagonist finally finds herself, perhaps for the first time ever since she was a toddler, and finally has agency over what she does and why she does it.

There's other parts to the event that I'm not covering that I think were great as well, such as Bagpipe's characterization being pretty damn good and once more winning me over (I started not really caring for her in any way, but her writing is something I like a lot) with how she's clearly not book smart, but is sharp as all hell, and most would call her "naive", when in reality, it's that she has a rock-hard moral compass and will NEVER stop going where it tells her to go, as well as the Taran survivors having plenty of nice scenes, including the incredibly chilling scene where the older lady that can't see in the dark is holding onto Selmon's hand and suddenly she can feel Selmon's blood all over her arm... We just never know what actually it is that killed her in that night skirmish. Fionn's characterization as this cowardly but good chum that will take responsibility no matter what is... Honestly, man, if you hang around sectors with low education and wealth, you know a Fionn or two. Especially when it comes to oppressed and displaced peoples... And the way the narrative portrays the opportunistic and almost callous nature of a bunch of the Taran runaways at times without vilifying it? It's great, the narrative immediately points out, through Reed and Fionn, that yeah, it's just natural because of how awful they've been treated their entire life, there's always people like that in such groups, doing it not out of cruelty, but simply because, damn, they have to survive, and nothing guarantees to them that this stranger with good intentions actually had good intentions. Trying to survive does things to people. This all becomes water under the bridge after Reed properly bonds with them.

I focused on Reed with this post because she's a favorite of mine and I'm happy to see her growth and where she's aiming for, and how she's grown narratively through her experiences and how that reflects on her Arts: True, Arts are a cool power in the narrative, but for Reed, it's more about how her Arts are intrinsically to her self-loathing in the past, and how they reflect her growth as a person: She went from a reluctant walking nuke who could only destroy and justified this by simply saying "it's because my sister knows better and she's doing it for the end goal of the well-being of Tarans... The end justifies the means" to someone who uses her almost unique powers to soothe others after learning some control over them, control that causes physical pain to her, as controlling her immense power feels as if she's searing from the inside, as if her organs were on fire, and comes to believe that, no, the means do in fact matter a whole damn lot, and that she'll one way or another achieve the end while being mindful of the means, even if it means suffering, if it's for her people. Eblana, who also can control life, uses her powers to 'resurrect' and control the dead like puppets, whereas Reed now sears herself from within in order to precisely control this power in order to help those she wants to protect, and drive away those who would hurt her or her friends. In what's a bit of a segregation of narrative and gameplay, whereas she's known for Explosions in gameplay, in the event, Reed exclusively fights with martial arts. In fact, the only time when she actually uses her Arts, she has to suppress them instantly or she was going to just completely incinerate everyone around her. She turns her surroundings to ashes so quickly that Ch'en can only just stare, wide-eyed, at how she completely incinerated a complete installation of military tents in less than a second, with just a small release of her power.

It's great! I love Reed! I wanted to see her growth, a piece focused on her, and it's what I got. I want to know more about the most loving and caring walking nuclear missile in the world with the most hypnotic tail swishes.

[bengiyo]

Comfort Films Tag

Rules: List 7 of your comfort movies, then tag 7 people.

Tagged by @callipigio

1 - Shelter (2007)

I often joke around here about how I’ve been watching queer cinema for over half of my life at this point, and it’s easy to recommend this film. This is a coming of age film about a guy who gave up art school to become the primary breadwinner and caregiver for his family. However, when the older brother of his best friend returns to their town to collect himself, our artist and he reconnect and find something special between them. Great use of a young actor in this shores up the caregiving aspects.

I’m probably going to rewatch it now. Because it was produced by Here! TV, you can only legally watch it via a subscription to their platform. I own it on DVD because I fell in love with it and knew I needed to keep it forever.

2 - Big Eden (2000)

Big Eden. Oh, Big Eden. This is the film equivalent of a warm blanket and a tight hug. It’s about an artist named Henry Hart, who is preparing for a big exhibition in New York when he’s called back home to Montana because his uncle has had a stroke. We are greatest with the most queer-friendly town to ever exist as Henry manages his old angst about his straight best friend as the local general store owner also secretly pursues him. It’s absolutely lovely.

3 - The Blues Brothers (1980)

Luna has great taste, because this is one of the best films ever made. What was originally just an SNL bit turns into a fun road film about getting the band back together so that two brothers can raise enough money to pay the back taxes owed by the orphanage they grew up in. We also run over Illinois nazis in this movie and demolish dozens of cop cars. Cab Calloway, James Brown, Carrie Fisher, Chaka Khan, Paul Reubens, and Aretha Franklin are in it. John Candy orders orange whips. This is the kind of film I would watch with my dad any time it was on.

4 - Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

This is one of the most man movies ever made. I don’t know any woman who wants to sit down and watch this film, but me and boys will spend an entire afternoon on this film in a heartbeat. The sexual tension between Russell Crowe’s and Paul Bettany’s characters goes unremarked on this website in a way that lets you know for sure this hellsite is dominated by femmes, because those two have definitely fucked. At least twice. It’s 1805 and oceans have become battlefields!

5 - Clue (1985)

A movie based on the board game of the same name should not have been this good, but it instead goes on to become a camp masterpiece. Many people will end up remembering Tim Curry for Rocky Horror or even Muppet Treasure Island, but this is still one of his favorite performances for me. This film is batshit and I love it. 

6 - Camp (2003)

Speaking of camp films, let’s talk about one of the best of all time. I know we often talk about the bad singing in Thai BL, but I unironically love all of the musical theater in this film. I regularly listen to this soundtrack, and have been for over 15 years. It’s a film about a bunch of weird theater kids who get to escape the bullying and hellishness of their lives for a few weeks during the summer, where they get to put on a bunch of classic plays. It’s so camp. I love this film because it was difficult for me to find queer films that had happy components with them, and this little movie has a wide array of queer kids in it.

7 - Make The Yuletide Gay (2009)

This was the first queer film I ever watched that had a happy ending that was also a comedy. Prior to this, I think I had watched Beautiful Thing (1996), Edge of Seventeen (1998), Get Real (1998), and Bent (1997). Most of those films ended resolved or sad. Yuletide is a silly little gay film of almost nonstop innuendo about a guy who goes back into the closet when he returns home for Christmas, but hijinks ensue when his boyfriend shows up unexpectedly. It’s an annual watch for me around the holidays, and I usually host people for it. 

Also, Adamo Ruggiero is in it! He played Marco on Degrassi: The Next Generation.

This was fun! I think most folks have been tagged that I know, but I’ll tag @warningtothecurious​. If anyone else does this, please tag me back if you do this! I want to know what films you all return to.

[c-rowlesdraws]

final very superficial appraisal of the live action one piece show:

👍:

-the set design was wonderful and had a cool sense of unreality to it (as in, the environments feel like built sets and it’s part of the fun), it was colorful and theatrical and captured the manga’s blend of piratey genre aesthetics (wooden boards, sailing ships, rolled-up old maps) and “modern” elements like t-shirts and neon signs in a really pleasing way

-the show clicks to the top of the first rollercoaster hill at the end of episode 3 and then goes at the start of ep 4 and it’s just one breathless ride to the finish. I didn’t want the show to end. I do not care about one piece and started watching kind of for the bit but now I’ll actually be really upset if it doesn’t get a second season. That’s how good the second half of this show is.

-I love how all of the characters with colorful hair have clearly-dyed hair where their roots are showing (as opposed to wigs), and in flashbacks to a few of them as children the child actors have the exact same sort of imperfect dye job. It’s wonderful. It adds to the theatrical energy of everything, like “we know you know this is artificial, but we trust you to suspend your disbelief and enjoy this fiction with us”.

-with very few exceptions, all of the actors’ performances are great. They are all cool and fun to watch and there are lots of sweet and funny and emotional moments that work because the writing is sincere. Nobody rolls their eyes for the audience’s benefit at how weeeeird their world is— they live here! I love that.

-the trap beat they did for Arlong’s theme music rules

-this story with its global ocean and seafaring/island-based societies is kind of like “what if Waterworld was like a big colorful carnival” and I love that

-the Snail Phones 🐌

Things I liked less below the cut - 👎:

-Zoro’s backstory bff being depressed because “a girl can beat a boy, but no woman can beat a man [in a swordfight]” was a disappointing line to hear two characters just… play straight in a world that up to that point had seemed pretty non-sexist? But this girl sincerely believes that, and this boy doesn’t push back at all. In this world of self-dismembering clowns and people with axes for arms, you’re telling me that there are no champion swordswomen for little kids to admire? Not one?? From skimming the wiki, it seems like in the manga Kuina’s views are influenced by her sexiest dad, but the show doesn’t include that context.

-Kuina dying offscreen in “an accident” was the only tragic thing in the show that didn’t land for me. It’s just so blatant and funny. You’ve got to get rid of her so she can motivate Zoro, because she’s dead in the manga and that’s how you motivate male main characters, with dead women, but… how? Doesn’t matter! There’s been an accident. Typical backstory girl bff behavior. Call that Fridge To Terabithia.

-Iñaki’s energy as Luffy didn’t always work for me. Some character behavior works in manga and anime, but seems awkward and jarring in real life. It’s very difficult to pull off wild limb-flailing anime exuberance in live-action— live-action Cowboy Bebop’s glimpse of Ed comes to mind. But also, I never really liked Luffy in the parts of the manga I read, either, so maybe I’m just not the target audience for a Luffy in any medium. Iñaki seems like a friendly and chill dude and he certainly gave this role 100%— and also Oda himself loved him for the role, so that says a lot.

-the whole thing with Arlong and his Fishman crew where they’re part of an oppressed and formerly-enslaved minority, so of course they have beef with humans (“but slavery’s been abolished!” shouts a human character), but they’re taking things too far and not just fighting for equality, but domination, which includes extorting, killing, and enslaving humans, starting with this poor little girl here. And since this group are clearly evil and have these big evil plans, it’s cool and great actually for the heroes, who are all humans/members of the majority, to kick their asses and kill a bunch of them. Like… I get there’s a whole thing here with Arlong being twisted by hatred into the very thing he says hates, and maybe we’ll meet more Fishmen later in the story who are just people and not bloodthirsty evildoers, but it’s not a great fictional look?

It takes me back to hbomberguy’s critique of RWBY’s portrayal of the Faunus, and the problems with making your bad guys out of an oppressed ethnic group who, the story says, might have a point, if they went about things peacefully, but are just taking things too far with this domestic terrorism stuff. The Faunus and Arlong should really be writing to their congresspeople instead!

[autisticshadowthehedgehog]

Guesses for which character will be associated with which dish in the upcoming Sonic cookbook.

Blue is confirmed, either through the preview pages or name-drops in the title; or, in Chip's case, "it showed up in his game"

Red is "most likely"

reasonings for a couple down here:

Eat n' Run definitely sounds like Sonic

"Future-proof" with "Egg" tarts is confusing. My main guess is Eggman but Silver/Nega aren't off the table

"Perfect Note" could, as @birdsareblooming mentioned to me, be a reference to Tails Music Maker. Other than that, Vector's the main musician of the gang

"Eat Red Spheres" is def a reference to classic gameplay

"Tornado" Chips is very likely for Tails's plane

"Royal" Roasted Pinwheels, huh? Blaze.

"My Daily Respite" is also very vague. Could be Eggman?

"Burrito Blasts" could really be anyone, considering we all blast a lot. Shadow's probably the most likely with his usage of chaos blast.

"Luxurious Light Fare" – Luxurious sounds like a word Rouge would use. Other than that, I got nothin

"Island's" Bounty Salad seems like an Angel Island thing

NO idea what "Sumptuous Salad" could be. Maybe Eggman?

"A Simple Deduction" is either Eggman or Tails, they're the only ones who talk like that

"Leaf Swirl Salad" could be Sonic swirling up leaves as he runs, or something Big or Sticks eat in the woods

"Bangle Bagels"– Amy's bracelets could be considered bangles? My main guess is Rouge because her main thing is Jewelry. Bangles are also v popular in south asia so it could be Blaze, but I've never seen her wear any.

"Unlimited Potential" is a chaos emerald thing, right?

"Simple Pleasures" sounds very Big, but I could also see Knux or Espio

"When a Flatfoot's Flat Broke"– "Flatfoot" is a term for a detective or cop, and well. Vector be broke

Anything with "Ninja" in the title is probably Espio

"West Side Island" Sandwich is prob Tails

The "Rival's" Chili Dog is def Shadow being annoying <3

"Villain" Sub and Perfect "Egg"dog being next to each other is interesting; it's possible they'll have two of the same character in a row but maybe we'll have another villain?

"Catch o' the Day" is def Big

"The Master Meal Plan" sounds like Master Emerald, so Knux

"The Garlic Collector" – I put Rouge for "collector" but I SWEAR that title is a reference to some old mystery novel?? I just can't put my finger on which. So it could be Chaotix if that's the case

"Tangled Leads" could be Tangle buuuuuut it's more likely to be Vector with the "Mystery" angle

"Hidden Truth" is also a mystery angle but the usage of "hidden" seems like they'll use Espio

"Timeless" Comfort Food makes me emotional like ok Silver

Blaze's kingdom is ocean-based so she's def the "Sea-Born Monarch"

Tails and his Mint Candy, man

"Seven Rings in Hand" def references Sonic and the Secret Rings. Whether it's Sonic himself or Shahra in here...

"World Uniting" sounds a lot like a Sonic Unleashed thing

"Edge of Darkness" is something a hot topic kid would come up with so it's Shadow

The "Family Cookie Recipe" and "Mother's Specialty" both sound very much like Cream. But again, two in a row? Family cookie could also be Robotnik fam maybe? And mother's specialty could be Rouge's unseen mom?

"Colorful Companions" seems to be a ref to Sonic Colors and the wisps

"Caffeine Control" is this one isn't just "eat the coffee beans directly" then what is the point

"Diamonds in the Sky" couuuuld be Rouge cause gem ref but that's DEFINITELY a ref to Sonic R

"Vim n Vigor" idfk dude it's probably Vector just for the alliteration

[loopstagirl]

Legacy and Destiny

For @janetm74, who requested this. It's kind of an added scene to my Thunderbirds/Merlin crossover found here.

-x-

Resting his elbows on the railing, Scott stared out to sea.

Events of the last few days were… baffling, to say the least. The island invasion by itself was enough; the fear of realising potential hostiles had snuck aboard Thunderbird Two.

But everything else?

How was he supposed to say two people from legend that weren’t supposed to exist had turned up on their secret island? Or Virgil seemed to possess gifts that were impossible? Or even how-

No.

He wasn’t going there.

Thinking about that damn sword made him shiver. He was scared of it. He’d handled enough weapons in his time, that wasn’t it. It was because he wanted it. His hand clenched on the railing. Even now, it called to him…

“Am I disturbing you?”

Scott looked around. Arthur was hovering in the doorway, albeit casting the sliding doors a suspicious look, not quite figuring them out. Scott shook his head, and the legendary ex-king, once-dead monarch of a mythical kingdom, stepped out to join him.

For a moment, both men stood in silence. Arthur stood with his hands clasped behind his back, feet shoulder-width apart. Scott smiled. It had taken him a while to stand at ease after he’d left the USAF, instinct making him slip into parade rest. Constant teasing from his family had cured him of that.

But then Arthur relaxed. It didn’t take long for him to mirror Scott’s position, elbows resting on the railing, also looking out to sea. Scott’s gaze returned to the rhythmic movement of the ocean.

“I remember when my father explained to me what being a prince meant.” Arthur’s voice was soft and Scott glanced over. The man continued to look out to sea.

“That it wasn’t just a title and status and didn’t mean I could do whatever I wanted.”

There was an embarrassed lilt in his tone. Scott had picked up enough from the jibes between Arthur and Merlin to know that even by the time Arthur had grown up, he still expected to get his own way.

“But that it was a responsibility. It wasn’t just my future; it was my kingdom’s future.”

“That’s not how our world works anymore,” Scott said. He felt he knew where this conversation was going and wasn’t sure he was ready. This was his home: he was the one in charge here. Yet he’d never felt so out of his depth.

“Where are the others?” He was deflecting. His brothers usually took the hint, but Arthur only looked at him.

“Merlin’s showing your brother some more tricks.” He was trying to shrug it off, as if it was no big deal, but Scott heard the respect in his tone. Arthur, who had lived in a world where magic was real, was impressed.

How was Scott supposed to feel?

“I understand,” Arthur said.

Scott raised an eyebrow. “Understand what?”

“How’re you’re feeling.”

Scott snorted. “No offence, but no, you don’t.”

“I didn’t know he had magic. My father taught me to believe it was evil. Every time I tried to challenge my beliefs, tried to see it differently, someone proved me wrong. Then I find out my manservant is one of the most powerful sorcerers.”

Arthur trailed off, and Scott glanced at him. There was an old hurt in his voice. Something he’d dealt with, come to terms with, and still got hit with the emotions when he was least expecting it. He didn’t sound so sure of himself any longer.

“I understand what it feels like to have everything you’ve ever known turn on its head.”

“Your best friend kept a secret from you. That’s not the same.”

“He’s not-,” Arthur sighed, then rolled his eyes. Not at Scott though; more at himself. As if there was no point denying it. “That wasn’t what I meant. I died. I finished my fight. Then I’m in this world where nothing makes sense. Where everything I knew and understood has faded into stories. My kn- my friends are with us. We’re all here. But nothing is the same.”

Scott turned, resting his elbows on the railing instead and looking towards the house. It meant he could see Arthur better. He’d never considered it like that: the feeling of being thrust into a brand new world. If he suddenly dropped into Camelot, Scott was certain he wouldn’t last very long.

“Even after all I’ve seen and learnt, this world is strange to me.”

“I don’t think that goes away,” Scott said with a smile. “We’ve seen things too; seen how low humanity can fall, and how high they can raise themselves when disaster strikes. The strangeness of the world makes it worth living in.”

He flushed. John was the one for speeches, not him. But there was something about Arthur… Maybe it was standing in the presence of someone who had once been a king, a ruler in a way so absolute that it made his father as CEO look childish.

Or maybe it was because the magical sword that had caused this entire mess had looked into their souls and seen them as equals.

Arthur made a sound of agreement, then sighed. “Learning what it meant to be my father’s heir was hard,” he continued, returning to their previous topic. “What was expected of me; what people wanted from me; how most would only see me as a prince, not a man.”

Scott jolted. They came from different worlds – but he understood that. As soon as his father had risen in the business world, there’d been a hidden pressure on him. He was Jeff Tracy’s eldest: he had to set the example to his younger brothers, shield them from the press and the questions by taking it on himself. Once the money started coming in as well, he had to protect himself – and them – for those who were only interested in his name.

He'd been prepared to dislike Arthur, wanted to hate the man who’d snuck into his brother’s ‘bird and caused all this chaos. He didn’t expect to understand him, much less like him.

“Why’re you telling me this?” he asked softly.

Arthur straightened. Their heights were identical.

“The sword chose you, too. It saw in you everything it takes to be a great leader.”

Scott couldn’t hold his eye. “I told you, this isn’t how our world works anymore. Being my father’s heir doesn’t me this will all fall to me. It’s not like that these days.”

“Isn’t it?”

Scott frowned.

“You wouldn’t take on the mantle of leader to protect your men – sorry, your brothers – from having to make those calls? Not shoulder the responsibility of dealing with everything that’s related to your name so they could live a life free of that burden? You wouldn’t lay down your life for them?”

Turning, Scott looked back at the ocean. He couldn’t look at Arthur. It was unnerving how right he was. These were the decisions that he’d been making since he was fifteen-years-old.

“I don’t inherit a kingdom,” he said. His tone sounded desperate. That damn sword had got in his head. It wasn't his destiny to become a great ruler. He was supposed to save the world; someone else was supposed to run it. Someone like his dad.

“You inherit a legacy,” Arthur said. His tone was soft. He took a step closer and, to Scott’s surprise, put a hand on his shoulder. Arthur didn’t strike him as the type of man to initiate contact.

Scott looked at him. How could a man who was out of his own time be taking this calmer than he was?

“Don’t make my mistakes,” Arthur said. “Don’t do it on your own.”

“He’ll never be on his own.”

Both men turned. Virgil was standing in the doorway. Sweat plastered his hair to his forehead, but his eyes were full of excitement. Scott knew his brother was trying to look serious because of the conversation he’d just interrupted, but was bursting to tell him something.

“What?” Scott sighed, although a small smile was tugging at his lips.

“Nothing.” Virgil tried to look serious. Scott rolled his eyes.

“Tell me.”

“Look what I can do!”

Virgil’s expression was one of apt concentration. A shimmering glow filled his eyes, making Scott uneasy. His brothers all had different skills to him, but he didn’t usually worry about them being dangerous (Alan and his racing was another matter). But this? Magic? It was so far beyond him, beyond any logical explanation, that he was uncomfortable.

“It gets easier,” a voice murmured.

Scott glanced over to find Arthur was watching him.

“After a while, you start to see a certain beauty in it. And it’s uses.”

“I’m not using him like a tool! Or a weapon.”

“It’s not your choice to make. He won’t give you that option.” Arthur was no longer watching Scott. His gaze had focused beyond Virgil, and Scott saw Merlin standing in the shadows.

When nothing seemed to happen, Merlin stepped forward and whispered something in Virgil’s ear. The artist nodded, then exhaled, regulating his breathing. Suddenly, one of the small plant pots that lined the balcony rose into the air. It hovered for a moment, then shot skywards.

Virgil gasped. Before Scott could react, a wave of power rolled over him as Merlin’s own eyes changed colour and the flowerpot settled softly back in its spot.

“Still working on it,” Virgil said sheepishly. Scott just shook his head. Half wonder; half bemusement. If someone had told him 24hours ago, he’d be watching Virgil do magic – real, powerful magic – he’d have said they’d had one too many.

“Impressive,” he said, truthfully.

Virgil wiped his forehead, his excitement fading now as he’d done what he wanted to do.

“I meant it,” he said, as if he hadn’t just levitated a flowerpot using magic. “He’ll never be doing this on his own.”

“See what I mean about choice?” Arthur muttered, but Scott could hear the smile in his voice. The king turned to face him.

“Embrace your legacy, your destiny,” he said, tone serious. Scott had to fight to keep his expression neutral at the formality of the words. “It was who you were born to be. The sword knows that. Only the worthy can pull it free.”

“Huh?”

“Long story.”

If Scott wasn’t mistaken, Merlin was shifting uncomfortably behind Virgil.

Arthur stepped forward, heading back inside. Scott called him back.

“What if I’m not worthy?” If anyone other than Virgil was present, he’d never dare say it. “What if it’s wrong?”

To his surprise, Arthur smiled. "That you think so shows it’s chosen well. No one who deserves power chooses it.”

Merlin suddenly snorted, ruining the moment, and Arthur rolled his eyes.

“How did you bring it back down?” Virgil asked Merlin. It seemed an abrupt change of topic, but Scott knew his brother. Or, rather, Virgil knew him. He was giving him space to process his thoughts, taking the attention off him for a few moments.

Merlin glanced at Arthur.

“May I?”

“May you what?”

“Show him.”

“You’re asking permission?” Arthur sounded incredulous and Merlin shrugged.

“Feels like the right thing to do after that speech,” he said, the glint in his eye having nothing to do with magic this time.

“Since when has it mattered to you if I give you permission or not? You never do as I say, never have.”

“I do, too!”

“Name one time you did what you were told.”

“When you threw me out of your rooms when Bayard came to Camelot after you were crowned.”

Arthur snorted. “You weren’t doing as you were told: you wanted a day off.”

“Which you never gave me.”

“You did no work to warrant one.”

“I was too busy saving your life!”

“Of course you were.” Arthur’s tone was dry. “Being the youngest First Knight of Camelot counted for nothing, then?”

“Not against magic, it didn’t.”

The pair moved inside, still bickering. Scott caught Virgil’s eye, and as soon as his brother’s lips twitched, laughed. Virgil came to join him, resting his forearms on the railing and staring at the ocean.

“Okay?” he asked causally. Scott mirrored his position.

“Says the guy who just floated a flowerpot with nothing more than his mind.”

Virgil shrugged. “That’s new and exciting. You’re dealing with something that you’ve always known and never wanted to accept.”

“What’s that?”

“You’re our leader, Scott. Sure, Dad’s our commander, but it’s always been you we’ve followed, ever since we were kids.”

“That’s what being a big brother is all about,” Scott said. “You know that.”

Virgil just smiled at him. “It’s more than that, and you know it.”

Scott didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. He had always known in. He’d taken the lead when they were children, blaming it on being the eldest. But then he’d become a captain in the USAF with his own team, slipped into the role of Field Commander when International Rescue was established…

Arthur had a point. Being his father’s heir didn’t mean inheriting a kingdom like it might have done in the past. But it meant something. Something he planned to live up to.

“C’mon.” He pushed away from the railing and headed back inside. “I’m not sure we want those two running loose around the island.”

It wasn’t about trust. It was more that one had powerful magic Scott didn’t understand, and the other was a strong king who had no idea how a microwave works.

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Helloo, I'm a 24 year old INTP woman. I've been reading your blog for 6 years now. Back then I knew about type but not typology and cognitive functions. Your blog made everything very clear, as well as fascinating, so thank you very much for that.

I was interested in psychology, because I felt inadequate then and had a hard time relating to people. I wanted to achieve a lot so I knew I had to work on my weaknesses first, to balance everything. MBTI theory showed me exactly what those were. The stress was big too at the time, I was alone, abroad for my studies and I'm from a third world country, the adaptation was hard and I struggled a lot with that as well as other hardships due to material conditions.

Anyway, for years I've read some of your recommendations and digged deeper into the human's psyche. Into psychology and social sciences as a whole, even though I'm in a STEM field. I tried my best to work on my emotional intelligence and really choose a career path taking into consideration my type and aspirations, even going against my parents will to do so.

Since I've been working on this for so long and with awareness, I'd like to test my maturity, what can I do to know if I'm well-developed ? If I have a good grasp of my functions ? If I worked through my traumas ? Them, being beaten for the slightest thing as a kid. I'd love to tell myself that I do, but I don't think I have enough perspective to test it objectively, so what do you think?

Thanks a lot in advance, you're really doing an amazing work, stumbling upon your blog felt like finding a hidden treasure in some lost island in the vast ocean. One must be lucky and aware of its value to recognise the remarkable craftsmanship you put into it. You have my admiration for that. Wishing you the best in life 🙌

----------------------

I appreciate your kind compliments. Funnily enough, I also treat my blog as a hidden treasure chest of sorts. It's a place I stash gems and pearls (of wisdom) that I've picked up. I make them rediscoverable rather than just leaving them in the junk drawer of my mind, lol.

The way you frame the question is rather narrow given that "maturity" is quite a big and complex concept. If your question was sparked by reading the ego development section, there are reliable ways to assess it, but doing so isn't likely to provide you with useful information. There are a wide variety of factors that influence maturity, so it's not something that can be changed through sheer force of will. The process of maturation must be respected and allowed to progress at its own pace, rather than forced toward some imagined result.

Because maturity is such a huge topic, I'll limit the discussion to what I believe is relevant to INTPs. One thing I've noticed is that INTPs tend to confuse "development" and "growth". To be fair, these two words are often used interchangeably and their definitions can be quite vague in psychology. I'll explain how I distinguish them:

Development is about improvement of your ability to make good use of the inner resources you already possess. These resources include things like your talents, skills, and constructive traits that help you reach important goals or milestones in life.

Growth is about transformation, which usually involves a dramatic change to your attitude, perspective, worldview, or self-concept. When you "grow as a person", there is a significant shift in how you conduct yourself or live your life.

If you're science oriented, you can think of development as doing things to increase mechanical efficiency and quantifying the progress, whereas growth is like an unpredictable chemical reaction that creates a qualitatively new state of being. To distinguish development and growth in this way is not to say that they are separate. Purposeful self-development is one important factor that contributes to growth, but it is not enough in itself to cause growth. When INTPs believe that development is the same as growth, they hit an invisible wall as soon as they possess enough self-confidence to handle most of life's problems. What are they missing? Making good use of intellectual abilities, materializing talents, and improving skills will certainly help you be a more capable or competent person, but it doesn't necessarily help you grow into a more mature person.

Maturity (as defined by the stages of ego development) isn't a skill you can work on systematically like math or violin, and it isn't even an end goal in itself. Maturity is a side-effect of sustained psychological growth. If you want to know how to become more mature, then a focus on self-development isn't enough, it is also necessary to understand what spurs psychological growth.

If growth is like a chemical reaction that creates a qualitatively new state of being, then an important aspect of growth is actively exposing yourself to new experiences that have the potential to alter your psychology. Such experiences could be as simple as changing up a stale daily routine or as complex as moving to a completely foreign country. The key point is you are continuously learning new and important life lessons. This is why greater maturity also implies greater wisdom. Wisdom isn't just about what you know or how much you know; it's about being able to apply what you know with enough nuance, sophistication, and adaptability to create objectively good or beneficial results in everything you do.

Another difference between development and growth is there could be one method of development that works for many people for self-improvement, but there is no simple formula for growth. A new experience that significantly alters your psychology might have no effect whatsoever on mine. Why? Each person has their own unique lessons to learn based on what's happening deep in their unique psychology.

If you must learn from life experience in order to become mature and wise, then is it worthwhile to control what kinds of life experiences you have? Yes and no. Oftentimes, the experiences that provide the most opportunities for learning are the ones you find most challenging. Challenges usually bring some pain, so people tend to avoid them rather than use them as opportunities for growth. You shouldn't just randomly take on each and every challenge you see, but you also shouldn't exert such extreme control over your life that you miss out on unexpected or fortuitous challenges that would spur growth. The challenges you get to control are things like: pursuing higher education; stepping out of your comfort zones; confronting painful memories; talking to people you disagree with; etc. The challenges you don't get to control are things like being born into a dysfunctional family or suffering a tragic loss. Unexpected challenges are just as, if not more, important because they strongly compel you to build strength and resilience.

The advantage of knowing type theory is you get to know yourself better, especially when it comes to being aware of the challenges that you inflict upon yourself because of flawed perception and judgment. Being able to spot the weaknesses of your personality opens up many opportunities for learning and growth.

Are you able to identify all your patterns of function misuse? What do those patterns tell you about your challenges?

Are you successfully minimizing/mitigating instances of function misuse in your everyday life, i.e., meeting your challenges?

Are you able to use your functions optimally, i.e., to apply them appropriately and wisely to form a healthy relationship between yourself and the world?

Have you built up a healthy sense of self and practice proper self-care through introverted function development?

Have you learned how to adapt well to your environment(s) through extraverted function development?

Are you striking a good balance between the introverted and extraverted sides of your personality (i.e. neither is extreme)?

If you are on the right track in type development, life doesn't necessarily get easier, but you become much more adaptable to life's challenges. The results you get should speak for themselves.

If you are a mentally healthy individual, the desire for progress and growth never really ends, so it's natural to wonder about what more there is for you, especially in times when life is going relatively well. However, asking how to "test" yourself is kind of a suspicious question to me because it makes me wonder what the underlying motivation is. Sometimes, it's an indication that there's something wrong with the approach. A "test" implies there's a formula, but maturity doesn't work that way. You say you don't have the perspective to test yourself objectively? That is precisely how you know you have more maturing to do. When your perspective seems too small, then there's something you need to learn in order to broaden it. But I can't tell you exactly what that something is. You'll know it the next time you experience true growth. To paraphrase Kierkegaard: Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. This is the difficulty of being human.

What I can say is, at 24, you haven't lived much. You've still got much more ahead of you than behind you. You have a lot of lessons yet to learn. Personality type only tells you that some of those lessons have to do with your functions. But the rest is unpredictable. Some lessons come with the mistakes you'll inevitably make throughout life. Yet more lessons will come with the ups and downs of fate. And even more lessons will come as you get much older and gradually lose all the things you hold most dear.

If you want, I can give you some questions to reflect on for building self-awareness. Maybe some of them can lead you toward growth.

What sorts of thoughts frequently run through your head?

What feelings do you frequently experience?

What is your overall mood most of the time?

Are you aware of your needs and do you attend to them well? Are you aware that you have physical, emotional, cognitive, social, esteem, aesthetic, spiritual, and transcendent needs?

Are you aware of your passions and joys and give yourself enough space to experience them regularly?

Are you aware of your wants and desires? Are you able to explain where they come from or what motivates them?

Are you aware of your identity? Are you able to describe the things that define you as an individual? Are you able to explain how those things came to define you?

Are you aware of your worth? Are you able to describe your method of appraising/evaluating yourself, explain why you use that method (and not some other method), and justify that it is a good method?

Are you aware of how you are perceived by others? Are you able to express yourself authentically? Are you able to recognize and respect the authentic expressions of others?

Are you aware of the roles/positions you occupy in society? Are you aware of how those roles/positions affect your relationships with the people around you? Are you aware of all the duties, obligations, and responsibilities you have to yourself and others?

Are you aware of your moral values and how well you abide by them? Are you able to explain how you came to adopt them?

Are you aware of your core beliefs about how the world works? Are you able to explain how they came into being and how they influence your behavior?

Are you aware of the criteria/standards you use to define "success"? Are you able to explain their origin and justify them as being the most appropriate criteria/standards to use?

Are you aware of your aspirations? Are you able to explain why you've set the life goals you have previously pursued, are pursuing now, or will pursue in the future?

Are you aware of your potential? Do you have an ideal self that you wish to become? If so, are you able to explain how you came to construct that image of yourself? Are you able to envision more than one possibility for expressing who you are (other than what you are at present)?

Are you aware of your guiding principle/philosophy of life? Are you able to explain where it came from or why you chose it?

Mature people understand themselves more deeply than the average person. Depth of self-knowledge is necessary for making wise decisions in life. When you have meta-awareness of yourself, such as your needs, desires, preferences, strengths, weaknesses, motivations, biases, etc, you'll eventually be able to transcend your subjectivity as needed in order to operate more objectively. When your perspective seems too small (i.e. subjective) as an INTP, then you ought to use Ne to actively expose yourself to new knowledge/experiences that expand your horizons. By doing this, you should eventually encounter challenges that spark growth reactions.

[raviosnumber1fan]

Why does no one talk about the parallels between Wind and Legend?

Alright so I played Phantom Hourglass for the first time last year and was not prepared to see all the similarities it had with Link’s Awakening

(!Spoilers for both games ahead!)

Hear me out here

As most of us know, in Link’s Awakening, Link -or in this case Legend- is ship wrecked during a storm when his boat gets struck by lighting and he washes up on an island known as Koholint.

He meets and falls in love with a girl called Marin who found him on the beach.

Then an old owl tells him that he is there to wake the Windfish.

Of course when Legend does this he discovers that Marin and Koholint were all actually just a dream that the Windfish created so Legend would save it from Gannon(because the Windfish is actually the worst)

This is fairly common knowledge among the Linked Universe fandom. There are probably hundreds of Legend-centric fics on this very adventure alone

So imagine my surprise when I start playing Phantom Hourglass to see nearly the same exact thing happen to Wind.

The game starts normal enough with Tetra and Link -in this case Wind- taking a break from finding New Hyrule to look into rumors about a Ghost Ship. Nothing super interesting there

that is until as they get closer to where the said ship is and the air gets eerie and stormy

That’s about when Tetra tries to board the ship only for it to be hit by a bolt of lightning.

Wind hears Tetra scream and then jumps onto the ship after her right as it vanishes.

The game then jumps forward to both the ship and Tetra being gone and Wind waking up on a beach(sorta like someone else we know)

There he is greeted by a fairy named Ciela who tells him she found him lying there not moving while she was out fluttering around. She then asks him to tell her what happened which Wind readily does.

once Ciela hears about Wind’s missing friend she immediately sets out to help him find her and takes him to her “grandpa” who supposedly knows more about the Ghost Ship(there are other details but they are not relevant)

Now from here things play out relatively normal storyline wise. Just typical Legend of Zelda plot and dungeons things

right up until Oshus or Ciela’s “Grandpa”s true identity is revealed to be not some village elder, but a great and powerful being known as the “Ocean King”

Specifically when he returns to his “true form”

His true form Which is a Giant Fish.

the Ocean King goes on to tell Wind and Tetra that they’ve freed “this world” and that now they must return to “their world”

Unfortunately all of Wind’s friends have to stay behind in the World of the Ocean King so they have to say goodbye as the door to their world will close and Wind won’t ever be able to come back. Wind also has to watch said world disappear

A world he saved but can never see again and watches fade away. Sound familiar yet?

when Wind and Tetra return to their world, it’s to them waking up on an empty Ghost Ship.

Tetra’s crew comes soon after and all immediately express that they were worried but are glad the two of them are fine. Tetra is reasonably upset and yells at them for not coming sooner, demanding to know if they even tried to look for them. Only for her crew to then say this-

Yup. You read that right, ten minutes. What was likely weeks or even months to Tetra and Wind, was evidently only minutes in their own world. Tetra of course tries to correct them, saying they were definitely gone for much longer but she is just brushed off with this lovely excuse

Hmm, a dream you say? Where has that happened before…?

before Tetra can try to prove to them that it wasn’t a dream and that the Ghost Ship is actually super dangerous, the whole ship ends up disappearing.

For some reason the crew just takes this to mean the ship was haunted and just gave Tetra and Wind a really bad dream

Now obviously there are some pretty big differences between what happens to Legend and what happens to Wind.

The two biggest probably being that Legend had to go through it alone and thus had no one to back him up that any of it even happened and that while Koholint was entirely in Legend’s head, the Ocean Kings world was -in theory- actually real, just separate and usually unreachable from Wind’s own

but they both still save a world that isn’t theirs, make friends with nearly everyone in it, only to then never be able to see them again or that world after the adventure is over. And they were also both put through said adventures by a giant magical fish

I just think the similarities between the two is very interesting and something that Legend and Wind could definitely have a lot of potential trauma bonding over and it should be talked about way more

[powdermelonkeg]

Tears of the Kingdom: Final Trailer Analysis (Part 2)

Part 1 is here!

In our next scene, we have our new horned bokoblins mining, while Lizalfos keep guard.

THIS scene gave me chills. The atmosphere is terrifying.

Blue flames dance along the ground.

Pools of malice are spattered everywhere.

Trees are dead, or dying, as spores rain down.

Curly fern and mushroom trees grow, seemingly with no end.

There's this big glowing root in the center, giving off light, surrounding something—an egg? A crystal?

The grass is purple, and stalks reach toward the sky like hands.

Where is this? Underground? A parallel dimension? A corrupted Hyrule? It has no features I can place.

The monsters here are all coated in malice. They look possessed.

The mining operation looks like standard rare ore chunks from Breath of the Wild, but the stone it's set in has weird, circular shapes cut into it.

There are old ruins in the back that look to be just a set of shelves. What was their purpose?

At a slightly different angle as the camera pans around, we can see stalactites, so this seems to be at least partially underground.

There's also another far-off egg tree, so we can rule out the glowing light being a trapped Zelda, at least.

Fittingly, in this eerie area, Ganondorf starts to speak.

This clip is very important, because of some context we got as Tears of the Kingdom was developing. It took a long, long time for the title to drop, because the Zeldevs claimed it "had major plot spoilers."

We all laughed about that at the time, but this clip puts that into perspective.

"Sweep over Hyrule. Eliminate this kingdom and her allies."

Ganondorf calls Hyrule "her." Hyrule is a she.

If "Tears of the Kingdom" is a plot spoiler, then maybe it's a call to the kingdom being able to cry in the first place.

Next, we see Lake Hylia. The water level is the same as it was in BotW, so that's been untouched.

Oh, hello dragon.

It's unclear yet whether this is a one-off boss, like the kind we'd have in previous generations, or if this is something we'll find around the world like Hinoxes and Lynels. But it's still really cool, and a big threat.

However, by advancing it a few frames...

We can see three distinct heads.

Breath of the Wild brought Lynels in, which were most prevalent in the original Legend of Zelda. I wouldn't be surprised at all if this was BotW's Gleeok.

In the distance, we can see Hyrule Castle, raised off of the ground. The malice here looks much less like smoke and FAR more like writhing tentacles.

The splotch of green, I believe, is the spiral that surrounds the locked down Sheikah shrines.

Next we have Hateno. Fairly standard at first glance, with the exception of the spiral surrounding Myahm Agna Shrine. However, it's worth noting that Purah's blue flames have been put out, and the torches along the path to it are completely missing.

And then you look closer.

Those weren't there before, and there's a splotch of malice nearby them. The start of the egg trees?

There's more malice on the side of the Dueling Peaks.

And then, off in the distance, either a blue Sheikah tower—confirming that they're still around—or a blue version of the new towers, which makes them Sheikah tech unto themselves. It's also in the same position, given the angle we're viewing Hateno, as Faron Tower; if it IS one of the new structures, that means they replace the old towers 1:1.

The Blood Moon rises once again over Link's head-

-with an island visible in the distance.

We can see the ocean line from here, so this is somewhere near the southern coast.

A shot of the Blood Moon over Hyrule Castle. Moon Big.

The castle's cliff is absolutely COVERED in malice.

The Blood Moon shoots out even more of it.

A point of impact that looks vaguely like someone reaching for the sky; there's definitely SOMETHING in there that's being transformed.

Lava-streaked rocks fall to the ground.

Parts of the palace crumble to bits.

And this'll be continued in Part 3. Image limit strikes again.

Edit: Part 3 here!

[faislittlewhiteraven]

Undertale/ISaT crossover thoughts 3

(aka the 'Sif and family explore The Island' edition)

Had a lot of Undertale/ISaT crossover thoughts (here's the post for how I'm crossing them over in general, and here's the post for an overview of each of the three major plot lines) but most of my actual thinking has been about Sif and family exploring The island so I'm gonna go into some depth for once rather than overview and hope this is useful for ideas for anyone writing any sort of 'Sif and family go to Sif's homeland' fic rather than the Undertale crossover centric stuff most of the other posts have been.

Side note: Location names in my notes is very minimal at this point as I generally look up names last when plotting anything. But er, working name of the Island is The Isle of Chara (because Undertale's Chara is kind of a big deal in this actually and good odds the final name will probably have Chara in it) so please keep that in mind in case I somehow end up typing that somewhere here in my notes.

---

Start:

Sif and family's plot starts with the return of colours and memories (caused by the breaking of the Barrier by the monsters). A day is spent kind of just 'emotionally reacting' to all that (Sif's kind of overwhelmed and in tears) but next day the group actually sit down and discuss whether it's worth them going or not because, yes they are the Saviours of Vauguard and yes they're right next to Bambooche but well, who knows what state the Island is in right now and if it turns out to be... Unpleasant, it is definitely going to hit Sif hard.

Siffrin, naturally does want to go, but am definitely having Sif mentally going over all the potential horrors of the situation (everyone just... Vanished without a trace leaving empty streets and homes? Piles of skeletons because everyone died in an instant? His parents completely untouched by the passage of time wondering why he, an adult stranger covered in scars is claiming to be their missing child?) before confirming with the others he's up for this and that they'll need his Island language skills in case of survivors and for reading signs and records anyway.

How do they get there:

At first the think of taking a boat but well, turns out the Island wasn't the only thing erased from memory and as they reach Bambooche it becomes apparent that- Oh! That 'spooky hill everyone just avoids' is actually a really big and complete with steel, concrete and 'our world modern' tar road bridge, that goes all the way out over the ocean and clearly extends towards the Island.

Cue Party stopping by Bambooche's harbour and the local House of Change to get an idea of options: The House also wants to send people to Vauguard's new/old neighbours (in general all the Houses in Vauguard are very curious and there's a ton of messengers and 'Message Craft' going back and forth everywhere right now) and they promise to get the word out to everywhere (including the press) that the Saviours of Vauguard are investigating so no one has any reason to worry. Cue awkward/nervous Mirabelle laughing and trying not to freak out at the pressure of being so important... Again! While many local sailors are willing to make the trip but well, prepping the ships for an unknown landing will take a while and everyone is nervous about the 'was apparently always there' giant bridge looming overhead (what if bits of it fall?).

So after a bit of back and forth the party go for the bridge. It needs people to check it for structural damage and Sadnesses anyway and the party have people capable of handling both (gives Nille construction analysis skills) so welp!

Bridge:

Actually approaching the bridge the party spy some weird 'metal lumps' that as they approach several members of the group (not just Sif) recognise as long abandoned cars. Which are everywhere, to the point its genuinely hard to get around them, and the group realise the 'little building next to the bridge' is actually the entrance for an underground car park. Cue the group finding a 'building' built into the base of the bridge; sadly the door is locked and despite Isabeau and Nille's best efforts they can't smash it open, but Sif's pretty sure it's probably the door to a train station judging by the glass and metal tube they can see running from the side of the building base all the way under the bridge.

Cue talk on what the crab a train even is as they make their way back onto the actual bridge and start climbing and hopping over the sea of cars (Odile wants everyone to know she hates all this jumping btw), but the silly vibes stop dead when the groups starts seeing the remains of car wrecks and some never buried corpses left at the wheel/caught between two lots of crumpled metal (it's been like 18 years so they're pretty much all picked clean skeletons but yeah, Bonnie is definitely having their eyes covered by Mira). ...Isabeau points out that all the cars and remains here very definitely indicate that the people of the Island were not instakilled/frozen in time by whatever happened and, most likely, they were hit by the memory erasure effect and those who could remember how tried to flee the Island for places less detrimental to their psyches but... It's honestly kind of amazing that there aren't more crash wrecks and bodies given how mentally distressed everyone driving must have been.

It doesn't help cheer anyone up but the observation is noted (Sif keeps getting shoulder pats from everyone since well, this isn't the worst case scenerio but it's pretty bad), and the group continue walking until finally they reach a 'Craft' Station (think gas station but like, magic wish stuff for fuel or something. Thinking there's a favor tree 'tank' next to the building and everything) where they find a few scribbled notes in Vauguardian from the last worker there (bilingial type, lived on the island, trying and failing to remember the island and 'something, someone?' important they left there, decided to head for Vauguard but only after noting down everything they can and making sure all the 'time preserving seals' on the food storage containers are working properly. Just in case someone needs them) and a whole heap of fridges and 'glass cases' with somehow still fresh food inside them. Sadly the cooking implements in the building weren't nearly as resistant to the flow of time but the group decides they'd rather spend the night outside in their tents anyway so they set up camp, Sif shares more of what they do and don't know about all this weird stuff they keep encountering (some but not a lot; Sif recognises the appliances and roads but their coastal hometown was much more 'traditional' and they don't have a clue how all these high tech craft machines actually work outside of making sure they're set up right and flicking a switch) and have a nice dinner before going to sleep.

Next day is walking, with a side order of more walking. Mood is a bit better after talks and rest, but most of this gets skipped (during which the precipitation that collected on the bridge during the cold night evaporates into a thick fog, and then starts slowly clearing up under what looks like strong sunlight) until the group finally see the actual island itself for the first time and- Oh wow. That's an actual city (for an idea of the visuals please imagine the city in the background of the Undertale credits scene where Papyrus is driving along a bridge in a car). Group are blown away because, damn, somehow they weren't expecting that (this is waaay too big a place for them alone to explore, thank goodness the Houses will be sending teams in soon) except for Siffrin who promptly recognises the place as something of a tourist/heavily Vauguardian influenced city that he used to visit on rare occasions with his parents: Usually for big events like going to see a big theatre production on his birthday or to attend the Island's biggest Change festival (brought over by the large Vauguardian immigrant population) which his mom's family always loved attending.

The City:

Takes the group another hour or two to actually reach the city itself (walking takes time alas) but when they get there, yep there sure are a lot of signs in Vauguardian and little Change God statues everywhere. ...Also a lot of signs of looting and unchecked plant growth and 'feral' animals everywhere but most of the buildings look pretty good (Odile is still instantly 'none of us are entering going up or down any floors past ground level in any of these without good reason before Nille/other professionals can check them over for instability' though), and though it takes a bit of awkwardly trying to read a rotting signpost map, Sif is able to guide everyone to the central train station...

Which still has its automated trains working!!! (Sif takes a moment to brag about how 'of course they're still fine! All public transport systems are safe guarded by the best protections applied Wish craft can manage' before wondering why they feel so proud of that something their dad used to say a lot?) Cue party quickly finding the 'Vauguard line' which, yes is working and is just waiting for passengers, and (before proper discussion of 'do we take the train back to Vauguard and unblock the station doors on the other end' can be had) a trainline that stops by Siffrin's home town down by the Island's Southern coast.

...Needless to say, they go for Sif's hometown first (they're 100% planning on unblocking the Vauguard station's door at the nearest possible opportunity afterwards though).

Cue silly scenes of everyone boarding the train, comments being made of the silly 'mascot' figures in black and white everywhere (thinking I may cameo Ingo and Emmet in setting), Odile mentioning that she remembers riding trains -much less sleak and automatic than these ones- in Ka Bue during her youth (presumably their use being associated enough with the Island they were forgotten about when the Event happened), Isabeau turning out to be majorly freaked out by the closing doors and general nice vibes before whooosh they're off to Sif's hometown.

Siffrin's hometown:

Party get a nice scenic view of the coast and a lot of 'old fashioned if fancy' looking coastal buildings as the train zips along and pulls into an elegant if overgrown looking station (I'm thinking greek column/smooth plain stone everywhere vibes and IDK why).

One side of the station leads away from the coast in the direction of what looks an actual town, while the other goes towards the coast and in general seems like a much quieter 'district', with lots of more old fashioned looking buildings (some clearly more damaged by the years without care than others), lots of trees, boat houses and cobbled pathways.

Naturally Sif immediately heads in the direction of the coast, at first slow then running ahead as he recognises the streets and houses before finally stopping at a house in very good condition. Party catch up and yeah... This is Sif's home. That tree had a swing, the marks on the door are from when Siffrin got it into his head to try carving 'stars' on everything for 'good luck', that over there is the 'public door' to Dad's observatory he left open to the public because all Islanders deserve to have unrestricted access to the stars but just as often people from town would just walk right through the house to get there because Mom loved having so many guests and their 'private family rooms' all had locks so letting people freely wander their home was fine and-!

...Yeah Siffrin is terrified of going in alone but fortunately their family of choice is there and well, in they go.

Everything inside is in equally good nick (the place itself is simple and homey but also clearly high quality stuff everywhere) and somehow only very barely dusty, though the group are quick to notice that all the cupboards are bare, there's clear signs of someone searching and packing away things (books all over, things left open, scattered things like bowls and cups -someone trying to decide what to take?) and well. There's a bunch of notes, written in Vauguardian on the kitchen table. Odile reads it out:

The writer cannot remember her name, or where she is, her family which she knows she must have because there's three plates here, just as there are three bedrooms and one of each is for a child she can't remember she can't remember but. She can think enough to write things down, to check on her neighbours and get them to eat. ...No one can stay here. She remembers Vauguard so it must be safe, and... There's a boat, in the warehouse, she and others can take. She and the friendly boulanger she can't remember he's her friend but she can't remember know how to rig and sail it and they're more coherent than most everyone else so... If they head there, maybe things will be fine? She's always liked Vauguard and the Change religion, always thought about changing herself a little even if he likes her as she is She can't read that last line and Changing would be nice, she thinks. ...though, if the family she must have are looking for her, she'll need to keep some things the same. Darkless kinky hair is unusual isn't it? Especially with the darker skin she inherited from her Vauguardian mother so she'll keep those, but... Oh what if she makes herself really stand out in other ways? Then. Then maybe they'll notice and be drawn to her even if they can't remember any better than she does! She lists the things she does remember about herself once more, where she plans to lead everyone (Dormont is a nice place. The quiet slow pace there might help the others adjust), all the supplies she plans on taking (a porcaline doll. Her 's favorite. Hugs it constantly even though it feels awful), a few complaints about people who absolutely refuse to leave even though they're every bit as mindblanked as the rest of them and leaves an end note inviting anyone who reads this account to please enjoy their rest in her home but to please, please please not damage anything because- Someone else might not want it damaged and. She can't remember, can't handle even entering some of these rooms it hurts too much but. Please. She wants everything here to remain where it is, until the people who belong here can return.

...

So um. Yeah.

Big group hug and tears are had but Sif being Sif tries to push on quicker than they should, group reluctantly accept that he might just need some time to process and with Sif's blanket permission ("It's my family house. You're my family, so you can go wherever you want") most split into smaller groups inspecting all the rooms and things, with Odile and Isa checking out Sif's dad's study, Bonnie immediately poking their nose into Sif's childhood room dragging Sif along to tell them all about everything in there (Sif is having like all the nostalgia, heart ache and 'genuinely wanting to show Bonnie all the cool things, oh! The toy aeroplane that actually flies =D' moods right now), and Nille and Mira giving the more rummaged areas a quick look over since well. Good odds they may be here a while and knowing where stuff is might be handy.

During this period thinking Mirabelle should have something of a mild freakout for many reasons over the thought that Euphrasie -her mother/mentor figure- could possibly be Siffrin's mindwhammied birth mother because Dormont was mentioned, and the Head Housemaiden never really talks about her past and she knew of Wish Craft, and has that genuinely really rare darkless kinky hair and the hand writing on the note seemed familiar and aaaaaaa!!!! Cue giving Nille a scene of trying to help calm Mira down' mostly by pointing out there's no way they could possibly know the truth right now, pointing out that post the return of colours they can't really be sure what 'darkless' they're even talking about here, and Sif still flinches whenever Euphrasie is mentioned due to how much he associates her with the loops so if they ARE related... It's probably going to be a good long while before they can even consider reconnecting anyway so Mira has plenty of time to sort through her feelings on this, talk to the related parties to confirm if her suspicions have anything to them, and Euphrasie would probably need even more time to process it all than Sif and Mira will put together (good odds she'd currently be going through a massive breakdown/freakout back in Dormont over realising she has a kid she has no idea the identity, well being or anything of).

Mostly out of direct 'scene to scene' stuff at this point but thinking the group end up spending the night in the Observatory, which is MASSIVE and Siffrin sort of manages to awkwardly get across that observatories not directly used for study are always like that because they're basically public churches for Islanders since viewing the guiding light of the stars with others is a holy/community kinda thing but... Also Sif's family on their Dad's side have owned this observatory/the 'star viewing area' on these cliffs for generations and it IS totally normal to spend every other night stargazing with random strangers and to be given near constant lessons on stars and proper behaviour by your Dad so all the other families know you're being properly pious and- Cue everyone being like: 'hey Sif, I think your family might've be a little less 'humble coastal folk' and more 'stupid rich' than you might've realised from the perspective of being a 13 year old, also the notes and diaries in your Dad's study scream political work and someone who arranges a lot of religious stuff' and Siffrin trying to wrap their brain around essentially being the Island's version of Mira but with like, a lot of money on top of that.

Other:

They 100% find the body of someone who killed themselves recently when looking around... Somewhere. (too many days ago for them to have possibly stopped this person but definite confirmation that survivors of the Island might've been hit hard by suddenly remembering and having no support)

Probably meet Undine on the rail system while looking for pockets of survivors still on the island - Undine is doing the same on behalf of the monsters trying to set up a new government so um. Yay happy first contact?

Once Sif's group has met up with the Undertale characters there' definitely gonna be some Sif and Frisk friendship stuff, though probably not before Frisk and Bonnie (and MK?) friendship causes mild craziness.

(...Must have Sif, Isa, Toriel and Sans pun off. I can't write for beans but I MUST! For the PUNS!!!!)

Scene where Siffrin learns the Elder guy who's been looking after all the kids in the Village by Mt Ebott (main area the monsters have set up shop so it'll probably be renamed by Asgore 'Home Town' soon), is their grandfather on their mother's side and a bit of family history. - namely that Sif's mother was half Vauguardian (grandma was sickly and died before Sif was even born), that travelling to other countries and marrying 'outside the island' was seen as something very odd (slight xenophobic attitudes to outsiders?) back in Grampa's day, and a lot of little tidbits about Sif's parents like how his mom loved fishheads so so much, it was Sif's dad who cooked amazing Malanga Fritters with green peppers, the two of them had something of a whirlwind romance bonding over making enchanted things together (dad better at ritual work while mom could just boom! Make things off the cuff without thinking too hard about it) and... yeah. Just... Sif finding one living relative who never, ever expected to see any of his relatives again to boot (also Elder immediately being all 'introduce me to your family- Ah so just like your mother you favor big handsome men! Oh and your little one Bonnie is precious!' the second he gets over the weepy 'I cannot believe it' awkwardness because dang it, Sif deserves to find some additional family on this otherwise incredibly heavy trip)

The exploration into the space warped and Sadness filled Island Capital eventially leads to a lot of weird/heavy revelations about the Island for Sif:

Sif on his dad's side is basically the heir to one of THE big families of the Island (they don't like royalty but the Asterion and Chara families were arguably that in all but name).

His dad was very concerned about the heir of Chara because they were never really seen in public despite the Chara family living in/basically owning the Capital.

There was a genuine fear of the Monsters returning and waging war for the sins committed against their ancestors and a union between the Asterion and Chara families was seen by many as 'Universe ordained' protection against this (Cue Sif having a lot of 'trying not to wonder if my country practiced arranged marriage' squick and really appreciating their parents' choice to keep them well away from the Capital/the really religious types here...)

The Chara family was apparently in charge of protecting and aiding any Monsters found outside Mt Ebott (of which there were actually quite a few!) but according to the official paperwork all of them requested to join the rest of the Monsters under Mt Ebott? (All monsters helping the party point blank state that no one, monster or human, entered the Underground from the Surface before Chara fell)

...Notes on how Monster dust is raw Wish Craft in physical form in the Chara house...

Notes in the Chara house on how the Chara heir wasn't particularly liked, to the point they weren't being given a personal name until they did something to earn it.

Horror lab eventually found in the Chara house. Lots of dusty cages, notes on how people injected with monster dust react to it, etc.

Chara's room. Bare and empty aside from a few potted golden flower plants, a few letters and pictures stuck up on the wall (cue Sif doing a double take recognising their childhood name on some of them -Chara was that penpal of theirs that never responded?), and a few loose floor boards which underneath have scribbled escape plans, very expired food rations, carefully drawn and folded pictures of non human figures crying in cages, and bandages.

--- And... yeah. That last part is very much the 'Chara plotline' stuff kicking in hard but trying to think of little puzzle pieces for Sif and Co to find and slowly piece together into a big old ball of 'Wow, I DO understand why this otherwise very nice and did not deserve this country got accidentally ERASED by this kid actually' hints so um yeah.

Hope you like all the world building/stuff before it gets all 'period horror/drama' at the end there and do feel free to use any of this/give feedback as well. I've spent too long typing this out, my brain is pudding and I'm done on this thinky think train for now XD

[thefudge]

big announcement to make after my first viewing: the little mermaid (2023) kinda slapped!!!! 

it’s not a perfect movie, but it was so charming and full of heart, and it felt like the ppl making it actually cared about it beyond cash grabs. and halle is a FORCE of nature. she not only carried this movie, she sang it and swam it and flipped it upside down. she is MY LITTLE MERMAID ok. there’s something so striking and soft and melancholy about her, like you absolutely buy that she’s a disney princess BUT ALSO an old school mythical siren from a fairy tale. she had great chemistry with everyone, but her chemistry with eric?? totally unexpected to me. i actually liked their relationship much better here than in the original. the guy who plays eric (i’ve only seen him in the little women miniseries where he plays a very passable laurie) does a pretty good job, but it’s halle who makes the romance come alive for me.

anyway, the film also looked pretty great, so i guess they listened to ppl’s complaints when the first trailers came out. like, some sequences even impressed me visually?? not everything worked, but when it did, you kind of forgot about the cracks. i didn’t even mind melissa mccarthy as ursula, even though i was gunning for smb else. i wish they’d done more with her tho. i liked the things they teased out in her character, even a secret vulnerability (i’m thinking of the scene where she is frantically looking for a potion in order to beat ariel and you can sort of feel her unraveling), but i would’ve loved a bigger confrontation between her and triton. 

going back to eric for a minute, i found the changes made to his backstory kind of fascinating. not only did they flesh him out and give him more personality, but eric is, arguably, a much bigger “fish out of water” than ariel in this movie. ariel seems to belong to his world more than he does, because he is one of the few white people on the island and his status is very hazy. i mean, he was a foundling who was discovered after a shipwreck; he is a literal offering from the ocean. it’s got me thinking all kinds of thoughts lol. in any case, i really liked his connection to ariel, how they’re both collectors/explorers, how he’s drawn to the ocean and she’s drawn to the land. their lil nerd sessions! her spelling out her name using the stars! ahhh

overall, i really enjoyed the film and i plan on seeing it a second time! (which never happens with these live actions lol)

(oh, i knew the movie was gonna win me over when they began the film with that quote about mermaid tears from hans christian himself!!)

[jezabatlovesbats]

2023: The Year of Milestones

What a crazy year it's been, am I right? I graduated high school, and I'm now a college freshman. We got some new films that were memed a lot and made a lot of cash. The Owl House and Summer Camp Island ended. I got into some new things as well. Unikitty: Big Bright World turned 5 in January 2023, which is why I crappily edited in the milestone doodle I did for it. You can find it here because I made an ask blog for BBW. For anyone who doesn't yet know me, Unikitty and the BBW AU mean a lot to me.

Following that milestone, I realized there were more things I liked that were turning 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 or 30 that year than I thought, and those are very noteworthy digits to me. I wanted to create anniversary drawings for them in celebration. But, because I was procrastinating from them and I also had other stuff going on, I couldn't. 

Instead of individual milestone drawings, I decided to compile all of them into one big tribute. For the same reasons, though, I had to delay it to January of 2024. I was aiming to have it ready to go by about New Years' Eve. But then on Christmas day, me and my brothers were surprised with a trip to California, and we left three days later.

Without further padding out, I'll talk about the things from which the characters are here partying with me, and what those things mean to me. I'll also talk about what the 5 on my hot chocolate mug means, because I'm not 5 years old, and I wasn't born on Leap Day. Here we go! 

We're starting with the oldest thing featured, The Nightmare Before Christmas, which came out in 1993 and hit 30 years. Me and my family went to see it in a theater back in October of 2020, leading to me growing fascinated by it, its characters and its worldbuilding. I LOVE ME SOME COOL AND INTERESTINGLY DEVELOPED WORLDS, OKAY? THE HOLIDAY FOREST IS NO EXCEPTION! I thought of some other towns based on New Years, birthdays and Earth Day. I also thought up some backstory for Lock, Shock and Barrel because they're my favorite characters and I need more of them. Honestly, I felt like I was late to the party. Like, why hadn't I watched it sooner? But let me tell you, you can get invested in something at any time, no matter how dead its fandom is. I think the reason why TNBC stuck with me is because of its spooky-fun atmosphere. I'm not a fan of horror movies; when I go into the garage or go to pee at night, I have this subconscious fear that something's gonna jump out and slash me in two. I sleep with a nightlight on, too. But if it's clear that the spooks are non-threatening (which the Halloween Town citizens made clear in This is Halloween) and there's no graphic violence or gore anywhere, I'm all for it. After all, I enjoy both cute and dark things, and that's how I present myself. Also, I made an entry for TheITinFIT's YTP collab for TNBC in observance of its 30th anniversary, and you can watch it at the link in the replies!

Finding Nemo came out in 2003, so it's hit 20 years. Let me tell you- I was scared of this movie when I was younger. I wouldn't watch it because of the part where Marlin and Dory were sucked up by that whale, or when that pelican swallowed them (not Nigel; he's a good egg). I was also scared of that Octonauts episode where Dashi gets stuck inside a whale shark. I've always had this fear of getting swallowed by a larger being. And this is just my personal opinion, but I'm disgusted by vore. It's not for me, and it's never been. I can handle those scenes now- after all, Dory and Marlin made it out alive both times (and Dashi did, too). Later on, I had a greater appreciation for FN. Like spooky-fun stuff, another favorite, uh, aesthetic of mine is oceans and the sea. I dunno- sea animals are cool, and I've been fascinated with them since I was a kid. I had this phase where I wanted to be a marine biologist. There's just something so relaxing, but simultaneously exciting about Finding Nemo, and for that reason, it's now one of my favorites from Pixar. 

I was listening to the theme song for this show while writing this. Teen Titans also premiered in 2003, and I'm kind of ashamed to admit that I was introduced to it by Teen Titans Go. In 2018, we saw Teen Titans Go To The Movies in theaters, and I followed TTG up until, like, 2021. By that point, it just wasn't enjoyable for me anymore, but I still very much enjoy the classic series. I watched it from start to finish in 2019 and got super into it, especially the HIVE Five. On Wattpad, I created a random story that was basically a blog for the HIVE. I wrote them profiles, let my followers ask them questions, and did incorrect quotes. It's deleted now, though. I was weirdly obsessed with See-More to the point where I made an OC that was his cousin, made OCs based on the other four senses, and shipped him with Scorpion (though they broke up later on). My mom printed the HIVE symbol on a black T-shirt, and it's still in my closet today. Besides them, one of my other favorite characters is Raven. Any character with a purple and black color scheme will catch my eye, but I also found her history and character traits interesting to the point where she influenced one of my favorite OCs I've made. I've got the entire Teen Titans series on DVD, including the Trouble in Tokyo movie. It was one of the first things I could say was one of my fandoms, so it's got a special place in my heart. By the way, I’d LOVE a (good) HIVE Five movie. 

Another thing I absolutely ADORE that came out of 2003 was the Mario & Luigi RPG series. I mean, I've been playing games in the entire Super Mario franchise since I was young. With this series, I'd always be playing Partners in Time, Bowser's Inside Story and Dream Team on my DS, but in both games, I could never get past two parts. For PiT, I couldn't beat the Swiggler, and in BiS, I couldn't get past the Pump Works area inside Bowser. (Like, I couldn't find the Stingler, even though it was actually super easy. You know, the sparky bzzt thing that opens that one door?) Dream Team was the only game my younger self actually completed, and I think that's why it was the game I liked the most. We got Paper Jam when it came out, and though me and my brothers fought over who got to play it for a while, I played it and beat it. I REALLY started getting invested in the M&L series in 2017, when the Superstar Saga remake came out. Now, as I said earlier, big, elaborate worlds with multiple places to explore and lots of characters will have my attention! So, I was hyped to traverse the Beanbean Kingdom. I never played the original Superstar Saga because we never owned any type of Gameboy. But, I got the remake, played it, and beat both SS and Bowser's minions. One thing led to another, and I fell back down the M&L hole. I even wrote a Prince and the Pauper-like story about Prince Peasley and Red, one of my OCs, but it's also deleted now. I had the idea that the series would be a great TV show, leading to me developing an AU in which I write it like one, with my own characters and kingdoms. Some of you may be thinking that if the M&L series appeals to me, then I would enjoy Paper Mario, too. If you are, I think you might be right! 

As I just said, I loved Dream Team the most, and it's still my favorite game in the series. For this occasion, I was planning on writing a post on why Dream Team was, in fact, a CLASSIC, but again- because of personal business and procrastination, I didn't. I forgot all of my points anyway. But I will say this: even with all the long tutorials, the visuals in the game are absolutely GORGEOUS. I love how well-detailed everything is. The colors were so vibrant and dream-like (just like the game title, guys!). And, the music is AWESOME. In fact, it's one of my favorite game soundtracks ever. I want more of the music with lyrics! I already wrote some for three of them! Luigi really got his time to shine, and his and Mario's brotherliness thoughout the game was just SO amazing and sweet. Luigi believes in Mario so much, and he's willing to fight alongside him, and they're unstoppable together! Also, the Pi'illos were and still are an extremely interesting concept to me, to the point where I thought up a whole Elena of Avalor-type character arc for Prince Dreambert. To me, he seems like a prince learning to rule his land in a different time after being stuck in a nightmare chunk for who knows how long. Anyways, Dream Team is amazing. I freakin' love it. Not much more needed to be said. 

Hitting 15 years in 2023 is one of my all-time favorite movies ever, WALL-E! I have loved and appreciated this movie ever sense I was a literal toddler! I made a bunch of little WALL-E stories, so I’ve been writing fanfiction as early as then. I just didn’t know what that was yet. I remember pretending to be EVE and M-O, the latter of whom is my favorite character. I loved it when I was younger, but I didn’t realize just how amazing it was until I started fixating on it again in 2021. When you revisit something, you can notice lots of things you hadn’t seen before and understand why you love it and what makes it so great. Like, I came to better understand WALL-E’s story and themes, and appreciate how gorgeous it is. I watched Hello, Dolly because of WALL-E, and the parallels I noticed blew my little mind. Those old stories I wrote when I was 5 influenced that WALL-E human AU I made. I think I might bring back my gijinkas and create ones for other things with non-human characters because I miss them. I think the reason why this movie appeals to me is because WALL-E himself is fun and perky and curious (and music-loving) in a similar way to myself. And, I’m a firm believer that there’s more to life than my job. I think that because of WALL-E, I enjoy sci-fi stories and worlds just as much as fantasy stories and worlds. I’m also a sucker for stories that combine sci-fi with fantasy. I still love and appreciate WALL-E so, so, SOOO much, and it’s such a huge part of my life. Autistic WALL-E is real to me. 

A movie that came out the same year as WALL-E that I also still love a lot is Ponyo. It came out in the US a year later, but I’m still including it here. Ponyo was my introduction to Studio Ghibli, and I watched it as often as I did WALL-E back in the day. Me and my brother LOVED this movie and would watch it while in in the car a lot of the time. I remember that my brother even started pretending to be a character called “Sonyo.” I think he also started liking ham. I already said how much I love oceans and fantasies! I don’t really watch a lot of anime or movies from Japan, so this was actually my first time drawing Sosuke and Ponyo. I think they came out pretty great. If it hadn’t been for this movie, though, I don’t think I would have wanted to check out Ghibli’s other films. I did watch Doraemon, Yokai Watch and some Pokémon XY Kalos Quest, so I think I still may have wanted to see other anime shows like Eizouken (which I watched all 12 episodes of). But, I’ve got Ponyo to thank for introducing me to Japanese animation as a whole, and in 2021, I watched all of Ghibli’s other movies (except for Grave of the Fireflies). I think I’ll rewatch Spirited Away and Arrietty sometime later on. I really want to see The Boy and the Heron.

There’s a good number of 10s here, by which I mean these things all came out in 2013. The earliest of these is Steven Universe, which came out in May of that year. I got into Unikitty when the last few episodes of SU were being hyped up. I remember watching a clip for Tragic Magic before YouTube slapped the For Kids thing on it, and most the comments were like, “Give us Legs From Here to Homeworld!” So later on in, like, 2019, I got curious and started watching the show from late Season 3 onwards. My first episode was Earthlings. Then, I watched the whole show from start to finish when CN did the Every Steven Ever thing before the movie came out. I watched the movie past my bedtime ‘cause it premiered on a school night. I made myself a gemsona, my brother started watching the movie and getting interested, and I watched the whole series with him including Future. Even with its flaws, and despite what people say about it, it was an enjoyable watch for us! It’s not the best thing ever because nothing is, but I’m on the side of defending it. Even with its flaws and all the shade it got thrown at it, it paved the way for lots of great things and helped so many people feel understood. This show is legendary in more ways than one, and it still has my respect. 

I’ve been interested in Ever After High since it first launched in 2013. I never had any of the dolls, but I think I watched a few episodes of the series. I remember reading Shannon Hale’s books and owning some of the other toys (like a lockable diary). I was interested in Monster High as well (creepy/fun and cute style! Right up my alley!), but I mostly leaned towards Ever After High. I’d also search the web and look up information about the characters. Raven’s included here because, once again, purple and black color scheme! Yay! But it’s mainly because I remember wanting to be like her. I wanted to be a rebel, and I began calling myself one. Back then, I interpreted her as being so defiant of her prewritten destiny that she believed following it was dumb. But I’ve grown since then, and I came to realize that she isn’t like that. Far from that image, in fact. It’s such a HUGE shame what happened to EAH, but I’m glad there are still people out there who show interest in it. I currently follow someone who’s got lots of ideas for a reboot! Sign me up!

I loved lots of other games in the Super Mario franchise, like Mario Party 9 and New Super Mario Bros. for the DS. My great enjoyment of Super Mario 3D World pretty much goes hand-in-hand with Ever After High. Why, you may ask? Because of the weird crossovers I wrote. Let me explain! Hear me out! I was a well-known enthusiast for the game’s Sprixies. You know, those little fairy creatures? I even had names for the Sprixie princesses based on their colors: Greenia, Yellowlina, Bluia, Orangia, Violet, Aquamarina and Redna. (Get it? Edna, but red?) These days, I still call the purple one Violet, but I gave the rest of them other nicknames. Also, back then, I had the red one be the queen of the Sprixies even though the green one is implied to be the face of the seven. Back to the ridiculous EAH crossovers. I made Sprixie sisters for the female characters in the series. The male characters had Toad brothers. It wasn’t just canon characters, either- I also made Sprixie and Toad siblings for people’s OCs I found on the internet. I even typed up a story about the characters and their, quote-unquote, siblings. But yeah- Super Mario 3D world was ridiculously fun, the music was bouncy and catchy, and the graphics are actually really pretty. In the last worlds, whenever we didn’t have enough green stars to advance, I’d organize the Daily Green Star Hunt. Games like this are the reason why I love searching levels for treasures and trinkets as I go along, and I don’t want to advance until all is found. I’m at a point in my life where I completed SM3DW (and also Bowser’s Fury, since we got that edition) to its entirety with everything you could collect in the game. This game stands as one of my top favorites in the Mario franchise as a whole, so much so that I wanted to include it in Mario & Luigi Rewritten.

I love a lot of films from Pixar, but when I was 9, I especially loved Monsters University. The most noteworthy memory I have with it, which is also the most important one to me, is when I had my tonsils removed. By the way, that’s the only time I ever had surgery done on me. After it happened, the next three or so weeks consisted of me eating nothing but ice cream, taking nasty medicine, and messing around with an iPad on this app called Toontastic (if anyone here has heard of it, you’re a legend to me). I also rented MU out on the TV without my parents’ permission and watched it on repeat. I loved to doodle the movie’s background characters and include my doodles of them into my Toontastic cartoons. (Yeah- the app had a thing where you could draw your own characters and backdrops. Also, off-topic, but Toontastic is the reason I know about Deng Xiaoping.) Also, I shipped the frats and sororities with each other. Like, all six of each one. The RORs with the HSSs, the EEKs with the JOXs, the PNKs with Oozma Kappa. Except for Mike, whom I knew was with Celia, and Sulley, who I shipped with… Carla the Killer Claws lady? That wasn’t the best idea. Johnny x Rosie is a ship I still remember quite fondly. Like I said with WALL-E, the older you get, the more you notice why you love a film so much and what makes it good. I really appreciate MU’s message about how it’s okay to fail. And yes, it is! Because if failure wasn’t an option, you wouldn’t know how to pick yourself back up on your feet when things go wrong. Even if you don’t achieve the dreams you hope for, that doesn’t mean you’re done for and there aren’t other doors you can go through. You still matter. My brother and I made a bunch of jokes about MU when I started college. Of course, it’s not what college is actually like, but I still love it and the original Monsters Inc. If I ever see Steve Buscemi, Billy Crystal or any of the other people from this movie in real life, I’m telling them about me watching it while recovering from surgery.

I’ve always gravitated towards the Mario franchise more than the Sonic franchise. And while I have played Mario and Sonic at London 2012, I didn’t like to play anything solely Sonic except for Sonic Lost World. I know, I know- it wasn’t well-received, but that doesn’t make me any less of someone who enjoys Sonic. Back then, I loved watching cutscenes and walkthroughs of the game, and I was particularly fascinated by the Deadly Six. I can only remember looking up pictures of them and reading fics about them. But, that led me to come back to my affinity for them in 2020. I became interested in fleshing out their characters more and imagining what their pasts were like. I do that a lot when I hear people say a thing is half-baked or cookie-cutter of mediocre/bad. I also created my own Zeti characters as well. I played other Sonic games like Colors and Forces, I saw the movies, and I thought up my Mobian characters. Also, I watched Snapcube’s SA2 fandub. I was there to witness Eggman go on the moon. I’d love to branch out to more Sonic stuff, so if anyone would like to recommend me some, please do! I’m all ears! If you’ve seen Take Me To Snurch (Snail Church), a version of that with the Zeti is stuck in my head now. 🎶 Take me to zurch. I’ll worship like a Zeti at the zhrine of your zife… 

Oof… I’m just gonna say that Frozen fever was inescapable back in the day to tons of kids, including me. When I was a kid, I was a huge copycat. I’d be into things because my friends were into them, and I’d plagiarize other people’s stuff almost all of the time. So, I don’t really remember if I was genuinely interested in Frozen. But apparently, I was enough to have my 9th birthday party be themed around it. Also, I remember that shortly afterwards, I had a sleepover with my friends from dance class, and we watched the movie together (not all of it). Right before we went to bed, we were all singing Let it Go as loud as we could. Frozen’s impacted my young life enough for me to take inspiration from it for Broken and Frozen. But, I agree when people say we need to warm up.

Lastly, there’s my milestone, which just so happens to be Christmas. On Christmas of 2018, I got a new computer, and my parents told me they’d set up the Wattpad account I’ve wanted since before I turned 18. I was first introduced to Wattpad after watching a video about fanfiction and reading the MC:SM Rewritten series (even though it’s now inactive). I talked about the weird little things I liked in real life, but while people listened, I never felt like they really knew what I was talking about. I started uploading my random thoughts, characters and stories to Wattpad, and I started making friends with people who were interested in the same things as me. When I did that, I really felt understood. The same happened when I joined DeviantArt in 2019, and for a while, it was just those two. Later on, in 2021, I hopped on Tumblr, YouTube and AO3. Then came Discord, and most recently, Amino. I was and still am fiercely loyal to my creations and my pals online. Through my high points and my mess-ups, I’ll want to connect with my closest friends and mutuals whenever I can. I’ve found enjoyment in lots of things, and I’ve come so far in terms of developing my artistic skills. When online, I found it easier to connect with people because I could more easily seek out people I had things in common with. What’s especially important to me is that connecting in this way is how I met one of my best friends ever, and while on my trip, I got to see them in real life. I hope it happens again someday. It’s not good to be chronically online, of course. But, being here has helped me discover myself and find peace within this world in ways you can’t even imagine. To everyone I’ve ever interacted with, thank you for five wonderful years! 

Wow! This sure was a lot. To everyone I’ve ever befriended and followed over these things and others, and to everyone who followed me, I can’t thank you enough for being here! You guys are the reason I keep logging in almost every day and why I’m still on my feet. Especially you, Hino! Thank you so, so, SO much! 

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!! 🎆💜🖤🦇

[ohshy]

king hippo family and childhood headcanons

- adopted by a lovely lady he calls ''mama hippo''. He wouldn't meet his birth parents until he hit adulthood.

- high maintenance child.

- He was also a big crier. he had a phase as a teen where hed punch things when he was upset instead because ''crying is stupid''. But now as an adult hes comfortable w/ crying again. Beautiful sunset? Expect the waterworks. Peacefully floating in the ocean? quietly weeps. Hugged someone he hasn't hugged for a long time? the mans blubbering. He's still kicking off the habit he developed as a teen, though.

- hippo had a phase as a young child where he lied constantly because he believed it would make him grow a nose. his mother was extremely concerned ab this habit until she learned why he did it, and convinced him he looks perfect the way he is. Core memory was made at that moment :)

- in case it wasn't clear, loves giving and getting hugs. many hugs. its a pressure stim.

- even as a young boy, he'd search through his mother's closet and makeup drawers. he'd eat the lipstick until he discovered putting it on is actually more fun.

- his voice cracked in a way that scared his mother. He just went from elmo to batman one day.

- grew up with lots of old-timey 50s songs, such as ''tall paul'', which his mom, named paulina, considers her song. she towers over her son on a whopping 7 foot.

- had wispy, wavy black hair as a teenager, but it all fell out when he hit his mid 20s though.

- Hippo is an affectionate nickname from his mom, which he in turn adopted as a stage name bc he thought it made him sound cool n threatening.

- he became a boxer because for a multitude of reasons, one of them being that he was bored with his island life and wanted to see more of the world. boxing and sports in general (especially swimming and surfing) are also among his favorite ways to unwind.

- being an adopted kid and very interested in his and other island's cultures, hippo used to fantasize about having a destiny, that he was sent away from his ''home'' island to fulfill a purpose and make his bio parents proud.

- has a real affinity for marine life, starting from his childhood. the first time he saw a shark, he hugged it and gave it a kiss on the nose.

- ate soap once as a kid and liked it.

[campwillowpeak]

It is the largest bony fish in the world, weighing up to 2,300 kg. And since they have so little circumference, that makes them gigantic dishes that God must have accidentally dropped while washing them one day and passed them by, because no one could have imagined this would happen. AND THEY ARE USELESS. EVERY KILO OF THAT IS A WASTED KILO AND EVERY CENTIMETER OF THEM (3.3M BY 4.2M) IS WASTED SPACE. They are so completely useless that scientists even argue about how they move. They have little control other than some small movements. Some say they need to push the water with their mouth to control the direction. They could use their tail fin EXCEPT, GUESS WHAT, what it doesn't do is grow. It just keeps folding in on itself, so the fucking cells are being made, but this floating piece of fucking junk just doesn't put them where they need to go. They also do not have a swim bladder. You know, the one thing a fish needs to make sure they don't sink to the bottom of the ocean when they stop moving and it keeps them from tipping over in the water. Already barely able to move to begin with, this creature can't stop its lagging tour across the ocean or it's FUCKED. BUT. BUT. They can get stranded on the surface! And it happens often! Because without that swim bladder crap, if the ocean pushes the finest but biggest fish on the fucking planet, you're out of fucking luck! There is no creature on this earth that needs a swim bladder more than this spit in the face of nature, BUT IT DOESN'T HAVE IT. Some scientists have speculated that when they do, they are absorbing energy from the sun because no one knows how they manage to get energy to begin with. So they need the sun I guess. But good news, when they end up trapped like this, it gives the birds a chance to land on that fucking island that is your body and eat the bugs and parasites on your skin because it's basically a breeding ground for slowly migrating parasites. Pros and cons. "If they're that big, they must be at least decent predators." No. The most dangerous thing about them is, as you may have guessed, their stupidity. They have caused the death of a person. Because a wave put him on a boat. More exactly to a human being. And in 2005 he decided to relive his mighty glory days and do it again, this time landing on a four-year-old. However, the boy was not injured. All right, fish. Great job. Fool.

They mostly just eat jellyfish, because OF COURSE, they could only eat something that has no brains and can accidentally slip into their mouths. Everything they eat has next to zero nutritional value and because it's so stupidly fucking big, it has to eat a fucking mountain of worthless jellyfish to stay alive. Silly. See that ridiculous open mouth? Don't let that expression fool you, they just don't have the fucking ability to shut their mouths because their teeth are fused together, and they can't shut it. You know why she floats around like the most horrible inflatable doll in the history of our planet. Because he's actually just as confused as we are about why the fuck he's still alive.

However, they are sometimes eaten. BUT CHUNGO WHAT HAPPENS. No animals actually use them as a food source, they usually just mutilate them for hanging out. Seals have been seen playing with their flippers like frisbees, probably the most useful thing ever to be done with them. "Wow, those are good arguments, this fish is truly proof that God has abandoned us." Yes, thanks. "But if they're so bad at literally everything, why haven't they gone extinct?" Big question. BECAUSE THIS THING IS SO STUPID IT DOESN'T REALIZE IT SHOULD NOT EXIST. HE IS SO INcapable of LITERALLY EVERYTHING THAT HE IS NOT AWARE OF BEING THE WORST FUCKING FISH EVER. And what does he do then to survive? It lays many, many eggs. Besides some bugs, there are some ants and things that will lay more. But the sunfish WILL LAY 300 MILLION EGGS IN ONE THROW. 300,000,000. SURVIVING BECAUSE IT WOULD BE STATISTICALLY IMPROBABLE, what the hell am I saying, IMPOSSIBLE, FOR AT LEAST ONE OF THE 300,000,000 NOT TO SURVIVE (which is every time they lay eggs). And this concludes why I hate this complete failure of evolution, the sunfish. If I ever see one, I plan to throw stones at it.

I

WHA?

WHAT FISH?

WHAT IS THIS?

WHERE DID THIS COME FROM?

WHAT PROMPTED THIS?

IS THIS THE DRAMA GOING ON?

IS IT FISH DRAMA?

I AM SO CONFUSED

SCREAMING