#your interests matter

[lousydrawingsforgoodpeople]

[pippuns]

you ever think about how fucked up it is that shen qingqiu's first mission out of sect was him subduing the skinner, a demon who targeted and replaced people no one would really miss?

very fun how the skinner ended up getting killed and destroyed by someone else who took the place of a person no one really missed

[cursedtrekedits]

"Fighting your way through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, to retrieve an infant? I find your actions illogical.”

[creatingblackcharacters]

What are Black fans looking for in commissions?

I think this is another one of those things that artists may not have considered, so let's open the floor!

To my Black readers: if you are commissioning (or could commission) an art piece of a Black person specifically- maybe yourself, a friend, a cool character, an OC, etc.- I am asking you:

What things do you consider before making the choice to go with that artist?

(And I'll go first in the tags, just so no one feels pressured or alone)

To my nonBlack readers, esp my artists who want to expand their mentality, skill set, and maybe future clientele: I want you to LISTEN to understand. Listen to what Black fans are looking for in terms of care in the depictions of ourselves. Even if it gets uncomfortable, that's something you can challenge yourself on, and even overcome!

[kitmarlowe]

[marc--chilton]

house finding wilson ""interesting"" amongst a literal crowd of thousands is one thing but then to be proven right later when wilson flips his lid at a bar. theyre literally fanfiction but real but not

[canisalbus]

you say machete has to be closeted then why's he always wearing them little heels

Maybe he thinks he's a tiny bit nicer looking in them.

[anonymouspuzzler]

you know what? fuck you (heartbreak gulch's my own guys)

(@heartbreakgulch courtesy of the inimitable @strangegutz & collaborators, also miscellaneous Thoughts under the cut bc it's my blog no one can stop me the doors have closed behind you)

HEARTBREAKER BULKHEAD:

Probably does not have superpowers anymore but still came from a family of considerable influence and was under pressure to inherit, pressure which he very much Broke Under.

Turned to a life of crime, definitely got in over his head with it, and essentially got rescued by Eddie, who he is Utterly Obsessed With And Heartsick For.

Has spent literal years as one of Eddie's attack dogs and generally jumping through hoops for him for Whatever Scraps Of Affection He Can Get, though he's still kind of squeamish around Literal Murder and thus tends to be assigned to supply runs and such most of the time.

Amateur mechanic and car enthusiast. Probably did a lot of McGyver-ass fixes around the Gulch-slash-generally assisted Ami til Davey was recruited.

Speaking of, was still the guy who recruited-slash-rescued Davey. They fell for each other hard and are in a committed relationship now, which has helped Buck take a little bit of a healthier step back with whatever the hell he and Eddie have going on (and helped him be a little less jealous and curmudgeonly about the Hot Young Things In Town, ie Zeki and Felix).

Absolutely not prepared to be a guardian to Minnie which has led his and Eddie's whole Relationship to enter a fun new stage of "hey man can I ask you for parenting advice nothing weird"

HEARTBREAKER DYNAMO:

Pretty similar backstory to the Villain-Coded version. Civilian turned criminal, lost his arm when he got in over his head on a job and Buck rescued him.

Has a bunch of different prosthetics he swaps out for different purposes, ie. one for combat, one to use for mechanic work, a kinda general use/everyday one, etc. That said, he goes without a lot to make sure he's prepared for a situation where he doesn't have access/one breaks or fails on a job/etc.

An alarmingly good recruit; I feel like originally Eddie kind of let him stick around as a kind of "gift" to Buck, but now that he's actually got him on jobs he's become a real rising star. Real good in a scrap and is a little more flexible with his moral lines in the sand compared to Buck. Outside of that he works with Ami a lot doing mechanics and repairs - probably interested in learning CompanDroid maintenance/repair but figures it'd be skeevy for him to push that point too much.

He and Eddie have a complicated relationship I think. They'd be kinda suspicious/distrusting of each other but also have a LOT of similarities and work really well together. To say nothing of their respective relationships with Buck.

I don't think he's Trying to Uncle the younger recruits in the Gulch but he definitely Does. He likes White a lot. He and Ami would also definitely get along really well. He is being The Bigger Man and Mature Adult and not giving Felix a wedgie no matter how badly he wants to

HEARTBREAKER(?) MINNIE:

From the same family of prominence as Buck and is currently very much on the run after a failed attempt to kill her own dad.

Extremely a city kid and is Not necessarily adapting well to Middle Of Nowhere Self Sustained Living.

Knew Of Buck but never met him before this so his whole Life and Little Criminal Commune featuring Multiple Guys He's Got SOMETHING Going On With is. it's a lot

Would like to do some crime actually but is A) still a little traumatized and adjusting to the whole Situation and B) 13 Whole Real Human Years Old.

Fascinated by Zeki's whole deal and his work but I think they would absolutely bring out the worst in each other they would fight so much. Autism to autism hostility

Having a very complicated response to White and Ami wherein she thinks they're SO cool but interacting with them at any length would make her realize Things About Herself that she's not consciously ready to confront so just like. Imagine being White and looking over your shoulder and that 13 year old is just Intensely Staring At You Unblinking from around a corner and as soon as she realizes you've seen her she turns around and runs off as fast as she can directly into a wall

Zarita absolutely hitting that Cool Just Slightly Older Kid niche for her.

[apollos-olives]

re: zionists being the terfs of judaism

y'know how terfs have such a narrow idea of what a woman is? the same goes for the zionist idea of what a jew is. to them, a diaspora jew isn't a real jew. an anti-zionist jew isn't a real jew. a person who converted to judaism isn't a real jew. someone in an interfaith marriage, or the child of an interfaith couple, isn't a real jew. any nonwhite jew isn't a real jew to them.

also their entire identity is based off oppression. like for all their talk "jewish joy", they never shut up about how everyone hates them and how oppressed they are (even though they have insane amounts of power that they regularly wield over minorities). and that's literally exactly what terfs do dsgslkgsdf

and there's a lot of them who talk about how "actually zionism/radical feminism is super progressive! it's just like communism!" and they completely ignore the fact that most of the people supporting them are insanely right-wing.

also they both claim to be my allies (zionists claim to have my best interests in mind just because i'm jewish. terfs claim to have my best interests in mind just because i have a vagina.) and it sucks so bad. they are NOT my friends and i wish they'd stop pretending to be!

anyways that's the end of my rant. tell ariha i said hello.

this is very insightful for me, thank you. i was wondering what you meant by "terfs of judaism" and this explains a lot. i totally understand how zionists seem to pretend as though they have jews' best interests in mind but in practice they are extremely harmful to those that don't agree with them. thank you for this, it helps me learn a lot. plus "zionists are the terfs of judaism" is a banger sentence, so thank you 🙏🙏 and ariha says hi back!!

[me-sploh-rada-imas]

stats time as these polls have finally finished! bojan jan jure kris nace

these show the same data but in slightly different ways in case people find one easier to interpret.

so i guess the gays and lesbians love kris, the bisexuals love jan, the aces love nace, the straights love bojan, and the 'others' love jure? ngl i'm not so surprised by this! anyone else have thoughts?

also as always i'm amazed by how many bi and ace people there are in this fandom! and the fact that so few straight people come here haha.

data under the read more:

[llamagoddessofficial]

So... I just found out that in the octopi world the females are actually much bigger than the males... Is that the same with the octopi sirens in your au?

I feel like red might even need to take a step back for a sec (but only a sec) at the sight of a deep sea female octopi siren that's bigger than even skull lol

Then he'd flirt harder than he ever has before I'm sure... 😂

Sans is the only one who's a member of a species that has males bigger than females. He's good at being gentle with Mc because he's hardwired that way.

... It's a little trickier, for Red. A typical 'romantic' encounter for him would involve a lot of bites and bruises, it's sometimes downright dangerous when things get serious. He has to work hard to not listen to his instincts around her- especially since his instincts tell him to bite down hard. But he can work with this... he can be good, with a someone less sturdy. Just trust him~

Thanks to his injury making him grow so much, Skull is actually the size of of an average female of his species. But his injury also makes him strange and erratic, in both behaviour and affection. He's never felt things like this before... he doesn't see Mc as 'a love interest'- she is the love interest, if that makes any sense. The most important thing in his whole life. As far as he's concerned, there never was anyone before her, and there'll never be anyone after her, so he doesn't think of her in typical romantic routes or compare her to 'usual' members of his species; he just thinks of her. All the time. ... The only wooing methods he knows are the ones he has instinctively, like touching and giving gifts. Everything else is a direct response to her reactions, and evolves based on her tastes.

[loriache]

honestly i'm kind of interested in the idea of laios in an arranged marriage. because obviously straight-up inherited monarchies are ...bad, to say the least! but it's what the characters are familiar with (even laios' father's extremely local, extremely minor leadership role is inherited, presumably through the male line). and it isn't just about what they think the best way to run melini is; in terms of ensuring that the other longed-lived nations respect melini's continued sovereignty, having it passed down in a manner that's close enough to their own ways for them to understand it and respect it is important. And it seems like most of the other nations have leadership through inheritance - thought that isn't confirmed for certain except with the elves.

Also, a marriage carries the potential to establish foreign allies - something melini is certainly lacking. A marriage could come with resources they'll badly need, treaties of mutual defence, money, legitimacy and political capital... not that these things can't be worked around, but if laios isn't strongly opposed, there are a lot of advantages! and i don't think he would be, because that's the framework for marriage (conferring practical advantages, building intracommunity relationships and providing a partner to do important work that he can't do) that he had grown up with. he isn't exactly a romantic and I doubt he's holding out for any sort of relationship of that nature.

Like, I don't think it's impossible that they would go with this path, because it's the most obvious and it carries a lot of advantages and it's what almost all the decision-making characters would consider normal and not objectionable. and it could be so interesting.

I think Laios would have major hangups if expected (i.e., by Marcille) to establish a genuine, romantic interest in a woman. Whether because of his sexual or romantic orientation, or just his own deep-seated trauma about rejection and being inherently disgusting and scary. And I think he'd hate the idea of having kids, too, and be very frightened of being like his father. But I don't think he'd refuse on that basis; he could cope with a marriage contract, with clearly laid-out expectations and responsibilities. And when it came to having a kid, I think he'd be reluctant to express that he doesn't want to do it, because he isn't naive and he understood when he agreed to be king it would carry responsibilities like this. It's clear from his nightmare that he already felt pressure from his parents to have children, probably magnified by the fact his father has got a position, responsibilities and wealth to pass on. Obviously he isn't a perfect martyr, so he might struggle when it comes to actually going through with it - but I don't think he'd actually, outright refuse. I think he might do it even though he doesn't want to, and I think that could be really messy in a way that appeals to me.

I don't know, there's something about negotiating these kinds of complicated situations that's interesting to me. and i love a platonic marriage. If they find a woman who has an interest in education, for example, and can work with marcille on setting up schools and universities. she'd ideally be politically savvy enough to be an able partner to laios: even though kabru can and would continue to do a lot of that, there are different spheres that a queen and a prime minister can work within!

how would their relationship work? maybe she finds laios' perspective on the world, and his frankness, unexpectedly liberating after an extremely controlled, cloistered upbringing. maybe she had a rebellious phase, has magic, or something else which makes her a relatively unpopular candidate for marriage - even as melini grows in power, i doubt that they'd be getting offers for the cream of the crop in terms of perceived value on the marriage market, because laios' relationship is a bit too ambivalent/monstrous for that, and melini too new. maybe she's a widow! an older woman, wouldn't that be cool - though they'd want her young enough that she could definitely still have kids.

certainly i think he'd be happy for her to pursue other relationships, though ideally in a manner that couldn't produce illegitimate kids. with other relationships in play, that's even more interesting. like, both kabru and toshiro have complicated emotions relating to infidelity. i think kabru would actually find it quite cathartic to be in the kind of high-status environment that rejected his mother for perceived infidelity, pursuing an affair that all parties consent to, though he'd likely be incredibly aware of the public image - since "image" is what he was rejected for. toshiro... i just really really love the way he'd feel about being the "other woman" in laios' marriage, considering his feelings about his father and maizuru. especially given how much closer he is to maizuru than his mother, being in her position...! his emotions would be so complex, it's incredibly tasty. i bet he'd make a bunch of assumptions about how laios' wife feels about it and be totally wrong, and that's so interesting. also, i think laios' wife should fuck marcille (she and falin have an open relationship).

[falconfate]

Hello ranger’s apprentice fandom can we talk real quick about the stupidest thing Flanagan ever wrote

It’s about the bows. Yanno, the rangers’ Iconique™️ main weapon. That one. You know the one.

Flanagan. Flanagan why are your rangers using longbows.

“uh well recurve arrows drop faster” BUT DO THEY. FLANAGAN. DO THEY.

the answer is no they don’t. Compared to a MODERN, COMPOUND (aka cheating) bow, yes, but compared to a longbow? Y’know, what the rangers use in canon? Yeah no a recurve actually has a FLATTER trajectory. It drops LATER.

This from an article comparing the two:

“Both a longbow and a recurve bow, when equipped with the right arrow and broadhead combination, are capable of taking down big game animals. Afterall, hunters have been doing it for centuries with both types of bows.

However, generally speaking and all things equal, a recurve bow will offer more arrow speed, creating a flatter flight trajectory and retain more kinetic energy at impact.

The archers draw length, along with the weight of the arrow also affect speed and kinetic energy. However, the curved design of the limbs on a recurve adds to its output of force.”

It doesn’t actually mention ANY distance in range! And this is from a resource for bow hunting, which, presumably, WOULD CARE ABOUT THAT SORT OF THING!

Okay so that’s just. That’s just the first thing.

The MAIN thing is that even accounting for “hur dur recurves drop faster” LONGBOWS ARE STILL THE STUPID OPTION.

Longbows, particularly and especially ENGLISH longbows, are—as their name suggests—very long. English longbows in particular are often as tall or taller than their wielder even while strung, but especially when unstrung. An unstrung longbow is a very long and expensive stick, one that will GLADLY entangle itself in nearby trees, other people’s clothes, and any doorway you’re passing through.

And yes, there are shorter longbows, but at that point if you’re shortening your longbow, just get a goddamn recurve. And Flanagan makes a point to compare his rangers’ bows to the Very Long English Longbow.

Oh, do you know how the Very Long English Longbow was mostly historically militarily used? BY ON-FOOT ARCHER UNITS. Do you know what they’re TERRIBLE for? MOUNTED ARCHERY.

Trust me. Go look up right now “mounted archery longbow.” You’ll find MAYBE one or two pictures of some guy on a horse struggling with a big stick; mostly you will actually see either mounted archers with RECURVES, or comparisons of Roman longbow archers to Mongolian horse archers (which are neat, can’t lie, I love comparing archery styles like that).

Anyway. Why are longbows terrible for mounted archery? Because they’re so damn long. Think about it: imagine you’re on a horse. You’re straddling a beast that can think for itself and moves at your command, but ultimately independently of you; if you’re both well-trained enough, you’re barely paying attention to your horse except to give it commands. And you have a bow in your hands. If your target is close enough to you that you know, from years of shooting experience, you will need to actually angle your bow down to hit it because of your equine height advantage, guess what? If you have a longbow, YOU CAN’T! YOUR HORSE IS IN THE WAY BECAUSE YOUR BOW IS TOO LONG! Worse, it’s probably going to get in the general area of your horse’s shoulder or legs, aka moving parts, which WILL injure your horse AND your bow and leave you fresh out of both a getaway vehicle and a ranged weapon. It’s stupid. Don’t do it.

A recurve, on the other hand, is short. It was literally made for horse archers. You have SO much range of motion with a recurve on horseback; and if you’re REALLY good, you know how to give yourself even more, with techniques like Jamarkee, a Turkish technique where you LITERALLY CAN AIM BACKWARDS.

For your viewing enjoyment, Serena Lynn of Texas demonstrating Jamarkee:

Yes, that’s real! This type of draw style is INCREDIBLY versatile: you can shoot backwards on horseback, straight down from a parapet or sally port without exposing yourself as a target, or from low to the ground to keep stealthy without banging your bow against the ground. And, while I’m sure you could attempt it with a longbow, I wouldn’t recommend it: a recurve’s smaller size makes it far more maneuverable up and over your head to actually get it into position for a Jamarkee shot.

A recurve just makes so much more SENSE. It’s not a baby bow! It’s not the longbow’s lesser cousin! It’s a COMPLETELY different instrument made to be used in a completely different context! For the rangers of Araluen, who put soooo much stock in being stealthy and their strong bonds with their horses, a recurve is the perfect fit! It’s small and easily transportable, it’s more maneuverable in combat and especially on horseback, it offers more power than a longbow of the same draw weight—really, truly, the only advantage in this case that a longbow has over the recurve is that longbows are quicker and easier to make. But we KNOW the rangers don’t care about that, their KNIVES use a forging technique (folding) that takes several times as long as standard Araluen forging practices at the time!

Okay.

Okay I think I’m done. For now.

[daz4i]

dazai approaches life with the idea that wanting anything is pointless because it will be taken from you

chuuya keeps losing everyone important to him and yet he keeps going, he finds new friends, he keeps living as his own person

in a way, chuuya's life is like a confirmation of dazai's bias; any time he has something good, someone important to him, a connection, it gets taken away from him

and yet unlike dazai, he doesn't give in to despair

and i think that might be one of the reasons dazai finds him interesting enough to care about. because chuuya actively challenges the way he sees life itself just by doing his own thing. he doesn't go out of his way to talk dazai into seeing value in life, and i think this is the sort of language dazai has an easier time speaking

[thespineoftherighteous]

omg haha stop trying to sanitize and youngadult-ify aftg you're so sexy no stopppp but like actually stop. stop.