#5.5 hours

[taitavva]

Thus, Socrates says that "sophrosyne is something divine" (Carmides, 174b) and that "the sensible man is a philosopher" (Carmides, 174c).

[Enkrateia and sophrosyne in Plato: a comparative study of the dialogues Carmides, Gorgias, Republic, Politius and Laws - Juan Carlos Tellería Sebastián]

[thuviel]

Blood Veins

Screenshot study for @teryster‘s art class :D Love the magical atmosphere in the Deep Roads!

[ifindtheartifacts]

There’s 5.5 hours left and I saw my first spoiler. Team I thought we were tagging that nonsense it’s so close come on now

[bluuscreen]

i really like the communication pixies, they’re cute :] and hey, maybe they could be used to stay in touch when everyone goes their separate ways at the end of the series? idk, i don’t think senshi would be too into it

[ianthedebonair]

Marshal Steel and Charge annihilate pumpkins for... charity(?)

[cl0udberry]

Utena ballet doodles while I play around with style

[skrunksthatwunk]

thinking about how eiji's a pole vaulter and how ash talks about eiji "flying" and how eiji's associated with bird imagery and how eiji's free (unlike ash) and how eiji comes in on a plane and leaves on a plane and how ash cannot fly, ash cannot be free, how nyc is ash's prison, and how ash is the leopard who dies climbing the mountain, unable to live at such elevation, how he was trying to reach the sky and be free but was always stuck to the earth, how he chose to die instead of climbing back down, how he chose to die where he could see the sky and hope and freedom almost like a bird with eiji's letter right in front of him rather than letting everything go wrong and ruin it once again, how eiji's a failed pole vaulter anyway, how a bad fall ruined his career and grounded him (physically and emotionally), how it took flying to america and meeting ash and needing to save him and skip for him to try flying again, how he landed hard and harsh and still the thought of that escape compelled ash to protect eiji at all costs because if he could fly that means something to him, even if he doesn't think he can fly, how eiji is the manifestation of his hope and how when he breaks and asks eiji to stay with him a while he folds himself over his legs and weighs him down and traps him and grounds him, how ash fights like hell to keep eiji alive not because he thinks he can be like him (hopeful, flying, innocent), but because he makes him forget the gravity of his situation, and so he can see eiji fly again. how he wants to see him escape. how eiji is a bird and ash is a wildcat and how ash never once saw eiji as prey. how eiji never saw ash as a predator. how it is eiji's naivete that first endears ash to him, how it is his freedom and flight and removal from darkness and his ability to leave that darkness that really roots eiji in ash's blood as something essential to him keeping on living in this hell of nyc. how it is that distance from the violence and that hope for the future that ash chooses to surround himself in as he dies. how ash dies in a dream because he feels more than anything that he can't fly like eiji, that he can never leave. how his violence is a part of him and will be forever, how it weighs him down. how he wants to enjoy the view from the mountainside rather than looking up from the ground below. as if they can both fly. as if he is with him up there and not grounded. eye-to-eye with what he can't have, seeing eiji's homeland: the sky. how he dies trying to reach the top because he couldn't take retreating and trying again. how ash, tired and tired and tired and convinced it will go on forever if he crawls back down the mountain, chooses to close his life deluged in eiji, in eiji's insistence that they can fly together, in eiji's hope for him and for them, in eiji's beautiful dream. how ash dies without trying to realize that dream. how ash, in dying, destroys it.

[iphyslitterator]

Last-ditch attempt to have it "make sense" for Tommy to end up in the cockpit, with apologies to the aviation realists:

There's a malfunction in the plane that requires delivering repair parts of some sort, no way around it, they have to get a package to Athena.

They call the Air Force, as one does, to coordinate this delivery via helicopter, and Air Force guy-in-charge is like, "Hey, I hear you've got a pilot in L.A. who landed a bird on a capsized cruise ship in a hurricane, can I have him."

Tommy and Air Force guy meet up, and Air Force guy says, "Kinard!!! 😍" and Tommy says, "Uh, hello, sir, still not re-enlisting."

Turns out Air Force guy was dazzled by Tommy's aerial prowess and has been diligently trying to recruit him for months, Tommy just has this effect on older men sometimes.

Tommy warily agrees to fly the helicopter and is introduced to his Air Force co-pilot, who will be lowering the package into the plane.

As they're walking to the helicopter, Tommy awkwardly apologizes to co-pilot for taking her spot, and she rolls her eyes and says, "Not your fault [Air Force guy] is obsessed with you," so they're good.

OKAY, we got Tommy in the air, and he's flying the helicopter so good, he's very attractive, and co-pilot's lowering the package and it gets STUCK on the outside of the plane.

Athena can't reach it from the cockpit. They can't free it from the helicopter. There's not time to get anyone else up there. And THAT'S why Tommy tells his co-pilot to take the controls because he's going to go down and get it.

Co-pilot is like, "Are you out of your mind???" (yes), but he lays out their options and says, "It's you or me," and she very reasonably is like fuck that, I am not rappelling out of a helicopter into a crashing jet.

Tommy's already in midair when they tell air traffic control etc. what they're doing, and Tommy eventually has to politely say over the radio, "LAX, I need to concentrate right now, please shut the fuck up."

If Tommy is a better pilot than Air Force lady, it is not by much, and there's a breathtaking action sequence where they're both extremely competent, and Tommy retrieves the package and makes it into the cockpit.

Athena and whoever's been assisting her handle the repairs while Tommy recovers from the retroactive debilitating terror.

Meanwhile, Maddie's been on the radio at Dispatch all this time, hand over mouth panicking because her brother's boyfriend is, you know, rappelling out of a helicopter into a crashing jet.

So once she has a moment, Maddie, with deceptive calm, says over the radio, "Firefighter Kinard, this is Maddie Han with Dispatch, would you like me to inform emergency services that you are on the plane?" and Tommy is like ohhhhh shit.

Should he tell Evan? Is it worse if he knows? Or if he doesn't know? Will he be mad??? Athena is uninterested in this.

Eventually Tommy says, "Uh, Dispatch, what's your recommendation?" and Maddie says, "I'm gonna tell him," and Tommy says weakly, "Copy that."

The next time they have to take the plane off autopilot, Tommy - who does not fly giant commercial jets - looks to Athena and says, "Technically you have more experience," and she says, "OH no, it's YOUR turn," because while she has been doing an exceptional job, flying a giant malfunctioning death trap sucks, thanks. Also frees her up to go talk to Dennis Jenkins or the other passengers or something.

Air traffic control talks Tommy through it, and his general aviation knowledge/experience comes in handy.

As they're starting their final approach, Maddie comes back on the radio and says, "Firefighter Kinard, I have a message from LAFD. They just wanted to tell you both good luck; we're all counting on you." (Airplane! reference) (Tommy made Buck watch it.) (Buck made Maddie write down the exact wording and she has no idea why.)

Tommy starts laughing hysterically and maybe sort of realizes he's in love with his boyfriend :)

Tommy responds, "Roger, Roger" (Airplane! reference) (doubles as a Star Wars prequels reference), and when this is relayed to Buck, Buck maybe sort of realizes he's in love with his boyfriend :)

Breathtaking action sequence, they land the plane, Buck flings himself into Tommy's arms for a showstopping, foot-popping movie kiss, and then they go home and fuck nasty, the end.

[decoy-sammy]

WaveWave Week Day 2: 𝘔𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵

They're part of the most useful 'Cons so.... :] Con things! -They'll probably start speaking to each other about their personal-mutual-interests as well, after a while.

[beanie-the-bag]

BOOM solarballs has consumed my life

[mamawasatesttube]

okay im gonna lie down for a bit but if i don't get up and finish this fic and post it tonight im exploding myself for REAL. hold me accountable guys

[taitavva]

[Worlds in Worlds — Danusha Laméris]

[katkat030]

I remember you mentioning “The Watchers”, who are they? Can you tell me some lore behind them?

This is a rabbit hole that I don’t fully have time to go down myself right now but there’s a gold mine of information here and it can be split into about 3 parts.

From what I know:

There’s the original Watcher lore which is canon to Grian’s Evolution SMP, which started in 2017 and ended just over a year later. My knowledge of the SMP is mostly second hand, but the premise of it was to run through all updates of minecraft in order from the earliest version (buggy, grainy, fairly difficult to survive) to the more recent ones (transitioning bit by bit into the game we know today)

Evo smp and watcher lore is really concisely explained in a tumblr post here.

from the Evo wiki: Grian's final episode of the server was of the dragon fight, where he joined The Watchers when everyone jumped through the portal after killing the dragon. His joining of the Watchers had a modified end screen poem, where a text color representing Grian and additional text mentioning some of the other Evo members was added in. if you follow the link to The Watchers you’ll get more information on what exactly they are!

Grian talked about Evo and the watchers briefly in a podcast a good few years back (co-run by the same person who voices the Hermitcraft recap actually, Pixlriffs!) - when he joined Hermitcraft in Season 6, it's my understanding that his version of watcher lore ended with Evo. Canonically, Hermitcraft!Grian isn’t influenced by them at all. This isn’t the case in fan lore, which I’ll touch on later. There happen to be some incredibly interesting example of a what-if-they-do-follow/influence/kidnap/affect-him by talented writers, so if you want fanfic recommendations just ask :3

Where it gets really interesting is that creator Martyn, ign InTheLittleWood, decided to continue a version of watcher lore. This "eyesandears" (<- tumblr tag for it. Will contain spoilers) watcher lore is only canon to his interpretation of the series, and isn’t a server-wide thing that others incorporate into their videos. This runs throughout the life series and includes cryptic poems/rhymes, elaborate reasonings for why canonical events took place, Jimmy’s canary curse, who remembers the events of previous seasons and so on.

Note that the life series isn’t scripted, and has very loose guidelines for how players should act besides adhering to the rules. Martyn therefore has the story adapt as the series evolves (pun unintended), and a great example of this was his stream after limited life (life series iteration number 4) ended. He’s also on tumblr, because of course. This is his vod - I don’t have the time to go through it again myself. It contains lots of spoilers, but if you hang around in the fandom long enough you’ll begin to recognise the winners of each season and a few key events/alliances/betrayals/plot points regardless. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As far as I know, none of the other life series creators really know much about this or keep this in mind when the life series is going. It doesn’t influence them, nor does Martyn seem to go out of his way to incorporate huge amounts of it into his own pov. The lore adapts to what the players do, not the other way around.

There’s also the fanon (fan canon) watcher lore which is incredibly well (and quickly!) covered by Ezzriin, I’ll link that video here - this is more important for understanding why Grian’s depicted the way he is (and exactly what that usually entails).

The links I’ve included explain things better and more concisely than I can. Martyn’s 2 hour vod may take some time to get through, but I recommend at least checking out the others! :)

[3-aem]

thinking about my exit interview that was super informal but at one point i was like okay i will say something positive about the team and my ex manager was like okay

and then we both sat there in silence for a solid minute

[vole-mon-amour]

So far, the best thing in Palia is Tau. Unconditional affection with plumepuppy eyes. I need to be able to pet him forever (in one day).

[six-improbable-things]

If I had a nickle for every time I've fallen in love with a chaotic purple tiefling with curled horns who dual wields blades, has supernatural abilities of some variety, and once succeeded in convincing a group of people that he was someone important, I'd have ten cents. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's happened twice.