#plot is happening now...

[sodrippy]

piranesi part three okaaaay things are getting interesting!!!

[egophiliac]

So.... what are your thoughts on Ace's UM, if you haven't been asked this already?

sneaky magic for the sneakiest boy

no but really, I think it fits him really well! I had thought his UM would probably involve something kinda sleight-of-handy or pickpockety! and I looooved that it made such a nice loop-around back to episode 1. ❤️ I was. kind of half-expecting him to just run out and punch Riddle in the nose again. but instead this time 'twas he who offed the queen's head! it was great! and he did it while stone-cold terrified out of his mind! because Ace is the only remotely normal or well-adjusted person at NRC and therefore the only one who is like "we're going to literally die, this is super effed up". but he did it anyway!!!! I AM SO PROUD

[aashidoodles]

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Don't test me, Bestie!

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[binary-bird]

played as david in thicker than! he's not great at vampire politics

[sualne]

i imagine Mihawk doesn't know how to act around children.

(timeline)

[leal-hound]

do not speak to me of kindness; I have been sheath to the knife and swallowed the thorns.

[erinwantstowrite]

jaybin bear cub,,,,

i literally couldn't stop myself from doodling this

[minamill]

📔 Anisa Abdullahi 📔

Bookworm, Socially Awkward, Family-Oriented

[levemetal]

Shen Jiu becomes a Qian Cao Peak disciple AU

This is my excuse of yet another MuJiu AU. Incredibly silly but basically:

Before SJ was accepted to the peaks, the future Mu Qingfang finds him and immediately imprints on this sad traumatized orphan. So he gets his shizun to poach SJ for their peak. They agree, mostly because they have been unable to get SJ to, you know, get a medical checkup.

SJ is apphrensive cause A) who tf is this med student clinging onto him 24/7 B) why does he want to help him??? Without anything in return?? and C) he is a monster who can do no good, so why would he go to a peak of doctors? Surely this must be a mistake?

But it's okay, they can *teach* him how to do good. They can teach him to help, that all these things are choices rather than something you need to be born with. Slowly, but surely.

His cultivation problems? Can be fixed! They can treat him immediately, and somehow, a certain An Ding disciple always finds stupidly rare plants for the treatments he needs. It's not perfect but I imagine that a lot of his cultivation problems could be resolved. Especially with a shixiong who is all too eager to help out. And make sure he eats right damnit!! Shidi one meal every few days is NOT good nutrition!

Since I personally like to imagine that SJ is a plant nerd, maybe he becomes the plant encyclopedia for the peak. His bedside manners need work, but he's a great pharmacist!

Going down to the brothel to sleep is also no longer a huge problem. No Liu Qingge, he's obvs going there for clinic practice and helping out the women in the brothel! They need medical assisstence without judgement you know.

As for his Qi-ge predicament, maybe he is able to sense something wrong about YQY's cultivation and confronts him then and there cause Qi-ge. Qi-ge what stupid thing did you do. Qige you dumbass.

Mu QIngfang still becomes the peak lord, but SJ is happy to do his thing on the peak, probably a hallmaster or simple pharcamist/specialist. Somehow MQF wormed his way into SJ's prickly guarded heart and SJ's his closest confidant on the peak, to the point that he trusts SJ to handle other peak lords as patients too. (He's good at knocking out LQG so the brute will finally get treated. No you can't walk off a broken leg and 10 broken ribs shixiong.)

Either way, they're happy, they're cozy! Maybe one day SJ brings Ning Yingying along from one of his trips down the mountain. She'd do great on QIng Jing, but she has decided she wants to stay on QIan Cao with Jiu-shushu. Another day he brings in Ming Fan from the disciple selection, and as always Ming Fan becomes the eternally stressed mom-friend to all his shidis on the peak.

TLDR: Shen Jiu is literary happy on every other peak than Qing Jing how the fu-

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

Fever Whump Details

Being just as — if not more — uncomfortable closing their eyes and resting as they are keeping them open; because every time they close their eyes, they get caught in a never-ending loop of thought that is just incomprehensible enough to manifest itself as a brightly-colored whirlwind behind their eyes that is more of a bad trip than a fever dream.

Being unable to breathe through their nose forces them to breathe through their mouth, which leads to their becoming severely dehydrated, which leads to feeling nauseous and like their heart is moving their entire body with every beat.

Not being able to talk, but having just enough energy to periodically swear under their breath and say “oh god”

Not being sure if they have a stiff neck from the fever itself, or from pretzeling themselves into uncomfortable positions because of the discomfort

Regretting their life decisions

Feeling like their eyes are getting cooked in their skull because they’re so hot

Knowing they need to spread out their limbs and cool off; but being unable to get their body to stop shoving their hands down their pants or into their armpits to seek warmth

Still being painfully thirsty no matter how much water they drink

Getting nauseous from drinking water

Chugging apple cider vinegar water to get rid of the flu and then having the most awful acid reflux an hour or two later

Having a scabbed over wound that didn’t faze them at all when they received it; but now that they’re sick, makes them gag to look at it

[egophiliac]

Silver is finally here...he just took the title for the most beautiful card in TWST's history...

me five years ago: wow I really hope we get to see dragon Malleus someday! that'll be so nice and wonderful. I bet he's a big silly! :)

twst: :)

GOD. it occurred to me literally three hours before the anniversary stream that they might've been saving the reveal for then to just explode us all at once. this timing was EXTREMELY deliberate. thank you Twst. I can't even focus on all the Blazing Jewel stuff because Silver wielding the physical manifestation of his Complicated Dad Issues is busy eating my entire brain. and -- oh what's that? he duos with Lilia? I'M RUINED THANK YOU ᕕ( ᐕ )ᕗ

this is your warning that I'm going to be the most annoying person on the planet come Monday morning, thank you everybody and goodniiiiiiight

[inamindfarfaraway]

I would find Blondie Lockes very annoying in real life, but I love her in fiction. She's a genuinely good journalist in terms of both skill and ethical integrity, who only occasionally forgets to check the facts because she's fifteen and holds herself accountable when she does. She has incredibly high standards for everything and believes herself to be the ultimate authority on quality. She has magical lockpicking powers because her fairytale is about Goldilocks breaking into a house. She somehow completely ignores the story's moral that Goldilocks was wrong to break into the house, feels entitled to go wherever and help herself to whatever she's able to and cannot comprehend why people dislike this. She's been terrorizing an anthropomorphic bear family with her cheerful disrespect for privacy and is convinced that they love her. She has a non-anthropomorphic pet baby bear. Her motivation is dependence on external approval rooted in deeply internalized classism. She's desperate to be useful and important to those with higher social status and feels the need to lie that her family is technically royalty to fit in with her royal friends, even though they treat commoners like equals all the time. She positions herself as a conduit of true greatness; closer to it than the masses, but never the hero, always reporting on other people and evaluating what they've done. Because what she's done isn't enough to be worthwhile. What she is isn't enough. But this performative lifestyle makes her anxious about being judged as a fraud and an interloper, and ashamed of selfishly transgressing against social norms. Her microphone head looks like an adorable little bear head. That's one hex of a character alright.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

This wine tastes like pigs blood!

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[marinette-buginette]

Kiyi is not a Princess - A Look At the Fire Nation's Line of Succession

It's not even that much about Kiyi. But the creators seemingly got so lost in the sauce that their ideas about how absolutist monarchies work are as good as taken out of Disney movies now. So, let's set the record straight.

The Fire Nation line of succession

When it comes to royal lines, there were multiple elements that went into setting the line of succession: descent, sex, legitimacy, religion etc. For the Fire Nation, the ones we have 100% confirmed are descent and legitimacy (this last one seen with the Camellia-Peony War, where Chaejin was excluded from the succession because he was born out of wedlock). I would have gone on a whim to say sex counts as well, however, it is a bit foggy. In the Reckoning of Roku, it is mentioned that Firelord Taiso believed Zeisan (Sozin's younger sister) would have been a more competent ruler but could never become Fire Lord due to being a nonbender (I didn't actually read the book, so if someone who did wants to pitch in with the exact wording, please feel free to). This implies that being a Firebender is a requirement, but being a woman isn't. However, it also implies that Taiso would have been fine with ignoring the descent part (Sozin was older) if he deemed fit. Skipping the firstborn in favour of the second one isn't unheard of when it comes to succession so sure. And he is the absolute monarch, if he wants to pass papers to change the line of succession, he can. It is unclear to me if there is any power in place to veto or block a Fire Lord's ruling on any matter so for all we know, if he wanted, he could have. Plus, the fact that Ozai got crowned over Iroh because it was 'Azulon's dying wish'. For the religion part, it seems like the Fire Sages have to perform the coronation and acknowledge the monarch.

So to make it more digestible, the line of succession (while Azulon was still alive) is: Iroh → Lu Ten (firstborn of the heir) → Ozai → Zuko → Azula. With Lu Ten dead, Iroh MIA (at the time) then we have Ozai → Zuko → Azula. When Iroh came back, he gets added at the end of this line of succession. I am a bit unclear on Iroh in current times because it looks to me like he rescinded his role in the line of succession altogether with deciding to live in Ba Sing Se and letting politically inexperienced Zuko rule instead of taking over for a few years to create some stability.

Right now, we have Fire Lord Zuko and his heir presumptive (aka an heir that can be displaced if the monarch has children) Azula. Unless he wrote a decree to take her out of the line of succession — which would require a lot more brain cells than the writers are willing to give Zuko, not that he had a lot of them when it came to politics to begin with —then she's next in line. It doesn't matter how much anyone wants it or not, if Zuko drops dead tomorrow, Azula gets the throne.

Now, onto the other matter.

How does one become a Princess?

Option 1: You marry into the royal family. For example, Ursa was styled as a Princess, as she married Prince Ozai.

Option 2: You're born in a royal line. For example, Azula is a Princess because her father is a Prince, her grandfather, at the time of her birth, was the ruling monarch of the Fire Nation etc.

Bonus Option it's complicated: Royals had a habit of having children out of wedlock sometimes. Said children, if acknowledged, could be granted titles (Count of X, Dutchess of Y etc.) . Getting acknowledged and a title does not automatically put you in the line of succession, though. For example, Firelord Chaeryu was forced to acknowledge Chaejin and avoid dishonoring his noble mother and her house, but he excluded Chaejin from the royal family.

So Kiyi is not a Princess. Simple as that. Neither of her parents are of the royal line.

Could she become a Princess?

Well, this gets interesting.

Let's start with the fact that Kiyi got a pretty bad deal in a class-based monarchical society.

First thing, while her mother is a noble, her father is a commoner. Even if Ursa's family became destitute after Roku's death because of political reasons, it does not change the fact that she is still nobility unless Sozin revoked Rina's title, which I am not 100% sure he did. We don't know anything about Jinzuk besides the fact that he was the magistrate of Hira'a. While magistrates do not have to be part of the nobility, they can be. He could have been a second/third/fourth son of a small noble family with limited power/resources, given the position he was given was in a place like Hira'a, which is what I am inclining towards. He could have also been just some guy, but someone appointed him, and as a rule of thumb, you don't just go into the street and pick a random person to appoint to an administrative and leadership role, even if it's a small town. Given that Azulon was set on Ozai marrying Ursa because she was Roku's granddaughter, whether or not Jinzuk was a noble, it doesn't matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. However, in Kiyi's case, it does if Zuko wants to give her a title. It's more stigma than anything because people can be given nobility titles for specific services to the crown etc. But this is not her only issue. Which leads me to...

Second thing, Kiyi is a bastard. Which, in my opinion, would hold even more stigma than her father not being a noble. Ursa never divorced Ozai. As far as we know, polygamist marriages aren't a thing in the Fire Nation, so her marriage to Ikem/Noren is invalid. Could she be granted a divorce retroactively by the Fire Sages? Actually, yeah. Because Zuko named Shyu as High Sage, which was like the one sound political move he ever did tbh. We don't see what the Fire Nation's stance on divorce is, but given that Shyu is a Zuko loyalist, he'd probably grant Ursa retroactive divorce from Ozai. I am not a legal expert, however, as far as I know, retroactive decisions tend to be reserved for correcting a mistake or omission in the written record. She was still married to Ozai when she went and married Ikem. Though technically, she married him under a fake identity (and so did he), which might make the marriage void regardless in the eyes of the law. Idk how Spirit involvement affects legal matters in the world of Avatar, but as things stand right now, unless we pretzel-twist ourselves to make excuses, Kiyi is born outside of legitimate wedlock.

Now, Zuko might not care. In fact, he probably doesn't. He could still give Kiyi a title, including that of Princess. It was not uncommon for illegitimate relatives of rulers to be offered roles/titles once acknowledged. The real question is if he would put her in the line of succession. Kiyi has no business being there because she does not have royal blood.

Could Zuko do whatever he wants, give her the title of Princess and shove her in the line of succession while taking Azula out of it for good measure? Sure, he can. He'd probably love that, in fact. But that leaves two things open.

One, nobility would not take kindly to a bastard child of a commoner with no royal blood being in the line of succession. If we also add the angle of taking Azula out of it, it would just increase their ire. There is already a long list of why the nobility is probably angry at Zuko (and should attempt to assassinate him a lot more than they do), but I think this one in particular has other implications. There might be nobles who are neutral about Zuko. Shamelessly discarding societal norms on a whim might make their perspective swing towards negative. It could make him lose goodwill he might have or potential allies.

Two, it will make the commoners wonder. If this random girl, raised as a peasant, with a commoner father, born out of wedlock, can be put in the line of succession just like that — while discarding a princess of the blood if we are at it — then… is the royal line not that special? The whole premise of a monarchy is that the monarch and their descendants have the divine right to rule. Being part of that bloodline gives you the right to rule. So if that can be discarded, if that bloodline is not all that important… should Zuko be Firelord? And most importantly, does the Fire Nation really need a monarch at all?

Kiyi is not a princess, and for the well-being of Zuko's reign — which is already barely holding together — he better not make her one.

[shibara]

"themes most explored by narrative in Malevolent are hope and resilience" factoid actually just statistical error.

average malev character will die immediately and meaninglessly. Plot Armor Georg, who has survived 65 stabbing, 44 bludgeonings, 3+ months of starvation, and a mystery plague, is an outlier and should not have been counted