#same answer for both questions

[sevenines]

i saw this tweet and found it interesting for two reasons. one is that some people base how good cartoon network would be to toh by how it treated su, and despite the fact that su’s treatment by the network was considered poor at the time, now its thought to be exceptionally good in comparison to modern shows.

two is how exactly su got impacted by a limited budget. a common criticism is how characters like connie, peridot, and lapis are left out of missions. but balancing a lot of characters is not only hard but also costly (extra animation, extra voices—it’s been revealed that the show is limited to a set number of characters per episode otherwise they’re over budget). animation mistakes are not uncommon since retakes cost extra. the entire reason the original show got cut short was due to loss of funding!

[iamhereinthebg]

The clock keepers deserve to have the full shaded promo art for their volume 🙏🙏

Edit: I HAVE THEM ALL!!!

[sergle]

yall are about to piss me off by not having any PASSING basic knowledge of the way the u.s. military manipulates its recruits into joining by typing up one of your uninformed, unresearched, unempathetic, individualistic, unbelievably annoying posts about how 100% of the people in the military ended up there because they just Love America So Damn Much! they're extremely mature and informed at time of recruitment, they can totally leave anytime they want, they totally had tons of other avenues in life they could've taken, there was no rush at all to get income as fast as possible, and everyone in the military also totally is part of the combat divisions and personally enjoys being IN the military very much, big believers of violence. everyone in the military is shooting guns all day, that's how that works. they LOVE BLOODSHED. also I love the "amewicans haha" twang to this type of shit because you're actually TOTALLY stealing our Thing, which is turning systemic issues into Individual Issues. Instead of talking about the powers that be, it's so Personal Choice up in here. It's, "well you shouldn't have done it then. I totally wouldn't because I know better." you don't wanna talk about the military industrial complex as a whole, and you don't want to talk about recruiters, you just want to pin the blame on Specific Individual People one-by-one, as if they're responsible for the system that they're being ground up in. someone was in the military? bad person, no matter what. it's easier to believe that, I guess, than to acknowledge that Normal People (with high school educations) are manipulated and incentivized into joining a system that is Bad. at like age 18. but yeah no that 18 year old should have just been smarter lol haha anyway here are some screenshots for no particular reason

side note this reply of someone going "umm just get loans and go into a high paying field it's easy XD" as a direct response to someone trying to explain how most americans joining the military are being funneled in that direction out of a need for money.

and another person who Decided that americans join the military just CLENCHING their teeth thinking of other people, and not thinking completely selfishly about their own selves and their own income/housing/healthcare.

[rainofthetwilight]

need people to look at this tweet because oh my god, FINALLY someone said it

[hulloitsdani]

What do u think Kiran is

How do u think the order sees kiran

*slowly sits up in my chair*

I think Kiran is a very normal person. This is someone you and I have met before. Be that from the other side of grocery store cashier, waiting in the same elevator, or walking by on a crosswalk. Kiran is a civilian from our world trying to roll with the punches of being warped somewhere completely alien. And you can see it in how they conduct themselves.

I always have a lot of fun writing Kiran’s dialogue because their casual modern speech almost feels like a dialect in comparison to the more formal fantasy tone everyone else speaks with. An “ain’t” will never exit Alfonse’s mouth, you know? And there’s a difference in “Do you have gold?” vs “You got gold?” To me, this gives Kiran an air of unfamiliarity to anyone they interact with. Let’s use Grima as an example, because it doesn’t sound like this grammatical change would make much of difference until Kiran has the audacity to hit Grima with a bro mid sentence. But that’s just how they talk. And as sweet and friendly as they are, there’s always moments like that to remind that no one has the cultural context to fully understand Kiran. Except for the audience, who can realize that Kiran let the customer service voice drop to talk to Grima like he’s an actual person.

And that’s just about how they talk! This view is only emphasized by every other thing about them! They’re a lovable goof, which is normal chill person behavior in the audience’s eyes but feels REALLY ODD to the characters of FE’s medieval fantasy war setting. There is this air of unknown about them that the more socially perceptive will pick up on and will try to come to a conclusion about. Example, I imagine Soren would interpret a lot of this as a dangerous and deeply annoying lack of intelligence from someone he has the displeasure of sharing a tactics table with. Or looping back to the Grima example, he would totally think Kiran has greedy ulterior motives behind that pleasant facade. It takes a lot of work for those types to realize that the discrepancy present isn’t really any of those things. But I also wouldn’t be too surprised if Kiran doesn’t try to directly prove any of those assumptions wrong unless they have to.

Why? Well now it’s time for the implications! Oh how we love the implications.

Because the Summoner is a different story. No one has any fucking clue what that is.

I can tell you what Kiran has pieced together so far. Summoning people from across time and space is apparently not easy. It’s not some school of magical study that some mage could pull off with enough time and research. Trust, Eitri tried. It’s a lot of complex moving parts. For example, the contracts. The contracts Kiran automatically binds their summoned to don’t even compare to the ones Veronica used in book 1. They are far more intense and infinitely harder to break. The only way out of them is if Kiran wills it so. Not even death is an option, because Kiran can come in for the revive. If they had to guess, it’s an older, more completed version of the art. Something lost to time. But no matter the case, Kiran has the ability to take full control of whoever they manage to summon. From a lowly farmer to the divine. And their power only grows.

In a similar vein, if there was any character to canonically see the hud, I think it would be Kiran. It’s genuinely part of their power set. I have previously described Kiran as the party mage until Veronica shows up to be the actual mage, but it would be way more accurate to call them a mystic/seer. They see the map, everyone’s stats, and is doing a fast amount of math to give the combat forecast. Then, upon processing all this information their enemies couldn’t dream of having at their disposal, Kiran can telepathically communicate any change in plans to anyone under contract. Kiran is not inherently some great tactician the moment they touch ground in Askr; they simply can do things no one else can. They’re learning the actual tactics part on the fly. This makes them simultaneously the largest ace up the Order’s sleeve and potentially its biggest liability. If they fall, it could cause a whole system cascade. By that same token, some of the biggest threats the Order has faced are the ones who do their research and rightfully target Kiran.

Now. Thinking critically about all that. That’s downright terrifying. A ridiculous amount of power has been dropped callously into Kiran’s lap and they have to work extremely hard to be moral with it. It’s terrifyingly easy not to be. It would actively take less effort to ‘take the reins’ as it were. But in order to be able to sleep at night ever again, they go the extra mile to not invalidate the will of their summoned. To take over like that. To make a colony of worker bees out of people. Because oh dear god they just summoned a child and the fact that they could easily force them to fight and die for them, only to be revived and do it all over again, is HAUNTING. No. No the Order has an in house orphanage now. This kid is getting adopted and cared for god damnit or Kiran might just pop a blood vessel. And sure that child is going to be a child and there will never be a world where they get along with everyone else, but that’s just going to need be a problem they address when they get there and not an excuse to use Hubris; the power set. Now replace the word child with everyone they ever summoned and you have the wider philosophy they apply to the entire Order.

They’re hyper aware of the power imbalance. They hate it with every bone in their body. They work really hard to correct it in whatever way they can.

So Kiran might not jump on the opportunity to correct those who think lesser of them. It’s… oddly comforting to know someone is keeping a critical eye on them. Holding them accountable. Especially since so much of the order just thinks of them as this quirky yet well meaning host. And, really, what can they even do about that? They have gone over the contract with every hero they summon and despite that they still choose to stay. So, what, do they try to inspire more mistrust? The problem with that they would have to actually do acts that intentionally inspire mistrust. And even if that was successful they can’t just waste the extra man power because every other month there’s some new divine asshole who wants them all dead. And if they fail that means they have to start their life from square one and god they can’t do that again so—

Just breathe Kiran.

It’s fine. You’re fine. Just breathe.

You have work to do.

[shinobicyrus]

Watching WTNV make a sudden resurgence on Tumblr has been wild and delightful but what’s really been striking me about the passage of time has been seeing the recent fanart.

Because unlike back in the day when the majority of Cecil fanart depicted him via...a narrow consensus, most of what I’m seeing of Cecil now barely even represents him as a person, anymore.

He’s the Night Vale 👁, now.

And if he is humanoid? Then his face is...hidden. Blurred or otherwise made indistinct. In the time that he’s been gone, Cecil is no longer a mere Tumblr Sexyman.

He is a Sexy Eldritch Horror, now.

[bonefall]

If Sasha had left Hawk and Moth with Thunderclan or Shadowclan do you think Tigerstar would have been able to sink his claws that deeply into Hawk?

In ShadowClan, perhaps. Blackstar starts doing his damnest to stamp support for Tigerstar and his ideas out, but Ratscar is a clever cat. A clever, charming one. I can see him easily leveraging his charm to earn Hawkfrost as an apprentice, or the other Thistle Law supporters coalescing around their "young heir."

There would be less chance of Tigerstar getting his claws deep into his boy than RiverClan, which actively has NO reckoning and is deeply politically divided.

Meanwhile, it would be extremely unlikely in ThunderClan. ThunderClan as a whole HATES Tigerstar. Being part of his legacy is NOT something Hawkfrost would have been raised with-- and I can honestly see Sasha, if she realized ThunderClan was a good place to go, ALSO developing a pretty significant bond with Goldenflower.

...Thinking about it, it really would have been the Good Ending for Sasha here. Goldenflower would have learned about everything and felt a deep need to protect Sasha. Tigerclaw took EVERYTHING from her, and she immediately moved to reject him, but he still managed to convince her daughter to leave her side. TOOK Tawnypaw from her, and KILLED their oldest son Swiftpaw.

Learning that Tigerclaw went on to use Sasha would make Golfy sick. She doesn't have to think through it logically to know, deep in her gut, that what Tigerclaw liked about Sasha was that he could control this one. That Sasha was her replacement, to birth him kits he could own. Stealing her own child wasn't enough-- he wanted ones he could instill loyalty in from the very beginning.

There's a precious memory in her mind, of when their daughter Lynxkit caught greencough. Everyone knew she wasn't going to survive. Tigerclaw took his little kit, so small he could cradle her in his paws, and he hummed her to sleep for the last time. EVERY moon, she learns something that cracks that memory a little deeper, a little further, and one day she feels that she will loose one of the most meaningful images she has of her lost child.

How can she reconcile that image, to the trembling, half-starved woman who stands before her? This thin-boned rogue, who believes she is selfish and stupid for the egregious sin of losing a child while desperately trying to raise them alone?

Hawkkit and Mothkit would have had a very different upbringing. I also don't know if Sasha would have vanished back into the wilderness. World hard and cold. Golfy soft and warm.

[cloudysfluffs]

tickling your human host is SO unfair

(ns//fw and/or fetish blogs please dni🙏🙏)

[bloo-the-dragon]

so *points at mer au eclipse and ruin* these bitches gay, obviously

but im curious as to like. how do they view each other. do they see themselves as human labels of relationships? do they kinda have their own word for each other or is it just "yeah im stuck with this fucker for the rest of my life and while i may act like its a horrible thing i really dont mind and even prefer it bc honestly i doubt we'd be able to survive without each other"

honestly they give an "idc wut its called we're bonded for life" vibe /silly

HJGFGH Oh definitely it's a 'bonded for life' kinda deal, literally as well as metaphorically. As for what to call it, well it's not romantic nor is it platonic - Queer-Platonic is the closest/best term for it and that's generally how i refer to their relationship! It's very much it's own special thing, and it differs greatly from typical human relationships. (Honestly if they were humans it would probably be super unhealthy lmao)

From Eclipse's perspective he doesn't really give any label to what he and Ruin have. At the very beginning it was a sort of mutual roommate situation that developed overtime into them becoming so much more, to the point that - as you correctly said - they would no longer be able to survive without the other.

Presently Eclipse is aware that Ruin is now his counterpart and has fully accepted that (again there's a story behind this happening that i hope to one day share should i ever manage to finish the fic gfjkg) but as far as an actual term goes? Hell if he knows, but he's content either way, even if he does grouch a lot!

For Ruin, it's more simple - to him Eclipse is his mate, his bonded, his partner for life. Now again this differs greatly from human and even your typical animal forms of relationships (especially with the mated for life deal) and it still falls very closely under the qpr catagory. Mers don't actually mate in the sexual sense (genderless beings and all) so for them to bond for life is to quite literally bind/tie their soul to another making them as one almost.

So long story short, it's a queer-platonic partnered for life kinda deal! Neither of them have any actual labels for it, it's just a 'we're attached at the hip and we ain't letting go'. It's truly queer!

[coldgoldlazarus]

Maybe the solution to egg discourse, is that sometimes suggestions help trans people figure it out, and sometimes it pushes them deeper into denial instead, and so we shouldn't be making broad assumptions about what is or isn't good for someone, and just take each instance on a contextual basis?

[rythyme]

so often people are like "wow you know so many things, you know where everything is, oh my gosh, you're always our go-to person" but i actually don't know shit at all, i just know how to look for things and use a fucking search bar. like my co-workers will send me a curséd text (slack message) asking where the NDA form is so i go into the internal company wiki and i search through a few pages until i find a link and then i download the pdf and send it to them and they're like "wow! you have everything!" no i don't. i'm just the only one who bothered to look. stop pinging me derek.

[mastersoftheair]

part of anthony boyle and nate mann's interview with the daily beast

[easy-there-leftovers]

I've been getting a few asks about this recently but---

"Why don't you write for post-prison Spencer?"

Because post-prison Spencer is too much like my father and I feel really weird about writing someone that shares too many similarities to an actual person in my life, whom I am related to :DD

I'm fine with, and love, writing for younger Spencer because he's essentially a different character-- he's more like me, and therefore easier to write for and imagine

[vehemourn]

guy in mabinogi rolled up on a vespa and began polling

[lilacpaperbird]

I need a wincestie elder to tell me how the ship name evolved from wincest to samdean. I mean, the two co-exist together now, I see people using both. but has it always been this way or is the use of samdean a recent phenomenon? also I wonder if people have a strong preference for one and a dislike for the other. and if they're okay with both, then what was their reasoning when they started to use one over the other

I've also seen people using c*sdean instead of d*stiel (I'm censoring the names just so the post doesn't get hidden to those who have the words muted lol), and I saw someone say that, to them, d*stiel sounded kinda cringy but c*sdean sounded more mature. In general I feel like in many fandoms nowadays people tend to glue the names of the couple together instead of fusing them in some creative way you know? maybe that's part of the reason why samdean started to emerge when wincest was already a well-established ship name?