#they're so interesting to learn about

[clara-maybe-ontheroad]

I recently spent my lunch break talking to my coworkers about Amish and Mennonites and Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses while they looked at me with eyes like flying saucers, and I couldn't stop talking ! and really wanted to share everything I know about these high demand religions !

And sometimes I would try to stop talking but then my coworkers would keep asking questions and I thought I could die of happiness from the opportunity to talk more about this.

Is it what people who have special interests feel like when they can info dump about them ? Because wow pure liquid fire in my veins it felt so good

[wardingshout]

Zelda goes mushroom girl

[chalkrub]

been doodling some bri'ish wildlife - love seeing these guys. because they are the classics aren't they?

[scintillyyy]

can you really talk about tim's tendency to idolize and place dick on a pedestal and his semi-entitlement to understanding dick without also talking about dick's tendency to project his own feelings and insecurities onto tim and also his semi-entitlement to his right to try and micromanage how tim should feel and react about things. i, personally, cannot.

[muzzleroars]

rotting in bed (not so bad edition)

[gay-jesus-probably]

Seeing as the Gerudo turned on Ganon, he might not have been that much better of a ruler.

First of all, we literally have no idea, because the only ancient Gerudo that we actually get to interact with is Ganondorf himself, and he has nothing to say about his own people. The ancient Gerudo sage doesn't count btw, she doesn't have a name, we never even see her face, and she has literally nothing to say except repeating the exact same dialogue as the sages for the other races. The narrative does not treat the ancient sages as people; they are four completely interchangable weapons that are owned by the royal family.

And secondly, I don't care how Ganon ruled them; the Gerudo only get one man every century, if their king sucks, they've obviously got their own system of government to fall back on. I have no idea what kind of authority the sages had among their own people, but honestly I'd say if the four of them were in charge of their respective people, then they were just puppet rulers appointed by Rauru, given that all four of them happily agreed that to sell their entire race into servitude the second Zelda asked them. Say what you will about Ganondorf, but I fucking know that if he was told the Gerudo people existed for the sole purpose of serving the glory of Hyrule, he'd drop kick Zelda into the fucking sun.

And don't get me started on the implications of the cultural differences we see between the independent Gerudo and the annexed Gerudo. The background Gerudo characters all have their own models, and we can clearly see that the ones siding with Ganon have their own unique looks - for example, the amazing lady with the mohawk that summons the molduga swarm in that one flashback. And men are never mentioned in these flashbacks at all, which implies that the Gerudo genuinely didn't care about settling down. Ganon even speaks derisively about marriage, implying that it's very rare for Gerudo women to make serious romantic commitments with men. It implies that their culture is more along the same line as their portrayal in OOT - they are a closed culture. Men trying to force their way into their areas are arrested, and mocked for being entitled dumbasses. Outsiders are only welcome if they can prove that they respect the Gerudo as people, and aren't just there to try and pick up chicks. It's never outright said, but OOT also makes it pretty clear that the Gerudo women just aren't interested in marrying outsiders - close relationships occur with other Gerudo, Hylian men are only considered useful for making babies.

Meanwhile the Gerudo we see serving Hyrule are all trying to measure up to Hylian beauty standards, and appeal to their men. Their one goal in life is to meet a man and get married. Men are welcome in their lands, and only kept out of the town itself... and even then, there's a small army of guys trying to force their way into the town anyways, which is brushed off as just haha, boys will be boys. No men allowed isn't even about independence, it's just a silly romantic tradition.

Of course this is just a fictional culture in a game world, but it's still really fucking uncomfortable that the 'evil' Gerudo are the ones that have independence, both politically and socially, and display a unique culture that refuses to tolerate disrespect from outsiders. Meanwhile the 'good' Gerudo are the ones that canonically exist to serve a kingdom where 95% of the population is light skinned (even setting aside the unfortunate implications, just saying one race exists to serve a different one is super fucked up), they have classes on how to be more appealing to Hylian's, and their entire social structure is built around finding a Hylian man to marry, making them all inherently dependent on the goodwill of outsiders. Even their biggest value of 'women only' is treated as a joke; men trying to trespass in BOTW are just shoved back out the door, letting them keep trying all day if they want. The crowds of men plotting to force their way in are laughed off as a joke. Nobody cares that there's a guy running laps around their city walls and trying to trick women into being alone with him. I mean for fucks sake, in TOTK we find that the creepy guy trying to lure women away has taken advantage of a massive disaster to get into the town, and he's still there once things return to normal. You can't kick him out, or alert anyone to his presence. And the Gerudo just tolerate Hylians blatantly ignoring their boundaries. For fucks sake, TOTK even reveals that the seven legendary heroines they've been revering the whole time were actually completely useless and unable to achieve anything... because they needed the eighth hero, a Hylian man to teach them basic tactics and do all the heavy lifting.

TOTK does not respect the Gerudo people in the slightest. It doesn't respect anyone who isn't Hylian or Zonai.

...This got a little off track, but the point I'm trying to make is, no, I don't consider the Gerudo turning on Ganon to mean anything. The entire game does not feel like the real story of what happened, it feels like the propaganda version of history meant to make Hyrule look as good as possible. I genuinely cannot believe that we're being told the real story about the Imprisoning War, because none of it feels real, and we don't get to know any details that might have made Hyrule look even slightly imperfect. We're told that Ganondorf is evil because he hates Hyrule, and he hates Hyrule because he's evil. The Gerudo people followed Ganondorf and saw him as a hero of their people, then suddenly he was their worst enemy. Hyrule is a perfect kingdom that has strong, equal alliances with the other races, but also all of the non-Hylian races exist for the sole purpose of serving Hyrule, and their leaders are expected to swear eternal loyalty and submission to the Hylian royal family. King Rauru and Queen Sonia united all of the races in peace and equality, which is why they're sitting on the world's supply of magical nuclear missiles, and every member of the Hylian royal family is allowed to walk around wearing them as cute accessories, but everyone else only gets them at the last second, and they all need to outright swear to only use that power to benefit Rauru and his descendants.

There's just so many fucked up contradictions, and so many hints of something more nuanced going on... but the story refuses to acknowledge any of it, and just keeps aggressively pushing the narrative that Hyrule is the ultimate good and couldn't possibly do anything wrong. I don't even believe that Ganon was a bad king honestly; we never hear why his people stopped following him. We also never even see if the Gerudo people turned on him at all; all we know is the ancient Gerudo sage wanted him dead, and given that she also happily sold her people into slavery, she's not exactly the most trustworthy source of information. All we know is that Ganondorf was a hero to his people, only one of his citizens is ever shown having an issue with him (and her motives are never explained), and then he lost the war and was sealed away, leaving his people open to be conquered by Zelda and annexed into Hyrule. By the time we see any Gerudo actually opposing Ganon (apart from the ancient sage), it's been ten thousand years since the war, and all anyone knows is the Hylian version of the story.

[sysig]

Pretty clothes for you! ✨ (Patreon)

[bonefall]

oo snowkit becomes snowcarve?

He does!

In StarClan, you can use the names and appearance that you could have had, if you died young. It's very rare that you get permakits or permapprentices. I lifted from the COTC story about Smallstar and his siblings.

(Though, in BB those kits actually survive and it's MAPLESHADE’S kits who lead to the law on protecting children, Darkstar's Commandment, the Queen’s Rights. Smallstar is the leader of WindClan and xey're super chill. Xey own a lovely shawl.)

So Snowkit chooses to appear as Snowcarve, an Honor Title he would have earned for the creation of a full written Clan cat language, expanded from the simple glyphs. I'm not sure if he's a popular patron, but I do know that Bramble and Tawny invoke him sometimes.

Unfortunately though he's more invoked for general guidance by the two of them, not for possibilities like I think he'd like. He watches over them though, like a guardian angel. A lot of cats secretly have those.

I'm not sure who he follows around more often though. I think he LIKES following Tawny more because she's a better listener to his omens. But he feels like Bramble NEEDS him more, y'know?

Also notably, Snowcarve was technically their uncle, but the relationship is best described as "1st cousin." Rabnir in Clanmew, a familial role about somewhat distant but parallel growth, seen also with Brightpaw and Swiftpaw.

[mymarifae]

me: i finished the latest trailblaze mission in hsr so i can look at what other people are posting now! oh boy i hope it's discussions and theories about the story. i can't wait to see what everyone thought about firefly (what was going on with you sweetie...) and A Child's Dream - that segment in particular really left a profound impact on me. like who is mikhail? the voice we hear throughout is obviously misha's - did he have a twin? does mikhail have something to do with clockie? and from what we heard and saw, misha or... mikhail. encountered the embodiment of Death that lurks beneath the dreamscape. what's... the full story there...? i can't wait to see other people's perspectives it'll help me piece a more coherent theory together-

other hsr fans: *thirstposting about aventurine and/or dr. ratio, trying to cancel sparkle even though the entire point of her character is that yes she's a horrible person because it's high time we see how DANGEROUS and CRUEL the masked fools can be - no more reducing them to the silly wacky hijinks sampo pulled on jarilo; you should be scared of these guys; the game's story never wanted you to make sparkle your next skrunkly blorbo babygirl lol, heated discussions about whether dr. ratio displayed the same racism towards aventurine that sparkle did and if that makes aventurine/ratio a bad thing to ship (??????????), more thirstposts about aventurine, 500 billion generic yaois of aventurine and ratio that don't even maintain either of their characters*

me:

[captainofthetidesbreath]

I feel like it says a lot about the relationships between the major institutions of the Trust and the Consectorship's place in it that Spahr's role, the role of any Prime Consector, can be summarized as: show pony, attack dog, scapegoat.

[asharaks]

we've talked about wyll's bit and we all know about astarion's bit but let's talk about gale's bit. let's talk about his presentation as the Ideal of what it is to be an archmage. the man wears purple velvet pajamas with an embroidered collar to camp in the underdark. he wears a gay little earring with mystra's symbol on it. its all fun and games to joke about his jammies but let's be clear: those things Fuck. he dresses well, he dresses richly, he is a wealthy lavish man who, in a world where things like long hair are not traditionally associated with femininity, is not what I would call gender nonconforming, but I think he does have a very interesting presentation.

robes and jewellery are traditionally associated with wizardry and femininity - or, if not femininity, at least nonmasculinity. theyre the garments of monks, eunuchs, and nuns, people who stand outside of the typical sex/gender binary for socially accepted reasons. traditionally most archmages are men (karsus, mordenkainen, elminster, etc) who perform this exact presentation. the doylist explanation is, of course, that dnd canon is inherently misogynistic, but the in-universe implication would suggest that to present in this way is not regarded as gender non-conformation but as class conformation. so our options are:

wizardry is for gayboys

'wizard' is its own gender

gender presentation is less important than getting that sweet sweet +1 spell save dc and everyone knows it

class is a gender modifier. this has interesting implications for the other classes - particularly ones like clerics, which might have prescribed uniforms or vestments - but given that faerun does have a not-insignificant classless, non-adventurer population- how does it work for them?

regardless, I think it's fair to say that gale's bit - like wyll's is the Blade of Frontiers and astarion's as the seductive rake - is The Archmage. he presents himself, from the start, as an academic, as a wizard. he's a friend of elminster, the (ex-)chosen of mystra, gale of waterdeep - he's everything a Wizard should be. even when he's tadpoled, camping in the woods, he carries a stack of unread books, wears mystra's symbol, wears his purple velvet jammies. he's presenting himself with care and thought, and giving a highly specific impression. I think it's really interesting that, as much as wyll and astarion, he's putting on a front, and it plays into his story. do you encourage the side of him that's ambitious and daring, the archmage, the man who pushes the boundaries of power and knowledge - or do you try to break that down, and place the value on the man who just wants to sit in front of the fire with his cat and read a book?

[icewindandboringhorror]

I find it kind of silly that so many of those "time based life rule" sayings are like ~deep serious guidelines~ of some sort, but then there's that one other Well Known Rule that's just like "hrmm can I eat something off of the ground or not"

[cappucosmico]

hyperfixations areso weird i'll get into something and not know where to start my research and like skimming a wiki is Boring. and then i'll turn around and get fully into reading about lynx spiders and be delighted when i discover there's a genera that's quasi-social And 5 minutes before that moment i knew fuckall about lynx spiders aside from just a (correct tbf) shot in the dark that a spider i was asked the identity of was one

[enhanced-operatives-division]

Points at you. 10 and/or 11 for starstruck?

Two starstruck asks,,,,,,joy of joys,,

Part of an ask game linked here.

#10. What's an au you have for them?

Since them meeting at all is technically an AU i have 3 different ways that they do meet up. There's the one where Juniper ends up with the agency/adjacent to and ends up working with Reggie (have written a fic with this). The next one is Juniper surviving but basically going stealth and living as normal of a life as he can and ending up meeting Reggie through chance (most recent fic I've written). And then there's my personal favourite where Reginald "You're lucky my tracking skills are still up to snuff" Crane keeping himself busy after Phoenix was MIA and finding Juniper still alive (fic I want to write but haven't started mainly because it may end up multi chapter).

In terms of more AU canon bending taking them and putting them in a completely unrelated situation...I have a guilty pleasure Warrior Cats AU for IEYTD in general. Both JJ and Reggie have perfect warrior cats suffixes in their names already (Juniper and Crane) so they're called Junipersong (charcoal bengal) and Craneflight (tabby Norwegian forest cat). It's very silly but the amount of scenes I have in my mind for it...good lord...

#11. How was their first kiss like?

Augh my friend Imp wrote an absolutely excellent fic about it (tragically in the realm of unfinished Google docs) and I'm shaking their hand about it so hard. Basically Juniper kissing Reggie but he like wasn't ready/fully expecting it and Juniper absolutely panicking because he thinks he's misread every interaction between them both since they got closer. The second one is much sweeter though,,

[piratespencil]

Fascinated by Taliesin very specifically pointing out that until the latest ep, Ashton has barely physically touched anyone in Bell's Hells.

The fact that he specified that it's because touch hurts, but also brought this up while talking about Ashton starting to become more comfortable with BH and being more willing to talk to them about things... Also thinking about the fact that it was Orym, specifically, who reached out to touch them twice this past ep... Is Ashton happy about that? Or not?

Idk it was just really interesting to me that Taliesin brought that up as something that Ashton is very aware of.

[rad-roche]

joyous news. you know how the fallout setting is on kind of a skew for dead man talking? nothing major, but little things here and there. shaun never existed, so someone else is director, which means the institute is slightly different, so on. that specific setting is the one me and The Girls are using for the tabletop, which means that while dmt/dww is over, the incessant prewar Bits are not and BOY are they numerous