#ANYWAY after that tangent

[aworldofendlesswonder]

just realised i never posted this here, anyway i am hopping back on my mass effect bullshit and baby we're traveling FTL

[hurupounamu]

hc that ethari makes a prosthetic horn end for runaan to help with the issue of balance arising from the missing weight of the broken horn and to protect the remaining horn tissue. and it's beautiful and enchanted with as many healing and protective spells ethari can embed into the metal

[duchess-of-mischief]

This isn’t directed at anybody in particular, but to everyone who calls How To Train Your Dragon a “Boy and his Dog” movie, respectfully,

✨ No ✨

It is clearly a Boy and his Cat movie, thank you very much

[gristlegrinder]

extremely normal revenant commander with an extremely normal mists entity in their brain. it’s fine

[xmen-blue]

ironically something i like about scott summers is that in-universe he is an unlikeable person

[batsplat]

It's a thing I already knew but all your beautiful analysis really made obvious (to me) how much of a grudge holder vale is. That man is never letting it go he's gonna hold his grudges into his grave

you know, I do think this is an interesting issue, because I'm not sure this is true of all his grudges. just sticking here with the grudges he accumulated in his capacity as a competitor, rather than just his general approach to life or whatever... how you judge this will kinda depend on how you feel about the 'reconciliation' he's experienced with some of his rivals - and whether you read the whole thing as sincere or not. now, personally I reckon he still dislikes biaggi, but also you are allowed to just dislike people so I'll give him a pass for that. some of the others, I'm a little more convinced by the whole reconciliation schtick

let's get valentino's take:

interesting that he mentions those three together, isn't it? and like, he's still not messaging biaggi or inviting him to his home - "even with max" kind of tells you all you need to know - but the other two? they said some proper nasty things to each other over the years!! I mean, the casey rivalry, there's some remarks from both sides where quite frankly I think I would struggle just a touch to get over it

I don't know, obviously this could all be pr stuff, but I kind of feel like... y'know, why bother? it's 2022, you're retired, who gives a fuck? sure it's a good look to be all magnanimous, sure it can be a bit of a way of twisting in the knife to the guys left in the cold, but also, who would care if you don't play nice? I think especially with jorge, you surely don't need to do all that, inviting him to your home and dancing with him... (which, again, some of the spats those two had...) and with the casey rivalry, if there's one guy who's still hung up about what happened between the pair of them, it's obviously casey (speaking of blokes who can hold a grudge). maybe this is giving valentino too much credit, but personally I buy it's more or less sincere. there's nothing to really indicate he's still particularly bothered by any of their past disagreements - he's basically going for the 'all's fair in love and motorcycle racing' approach. he knows he was an asshole, he accepts they were assholes too, whatever, that's how these things work. he's generally a fan of drama in rivalries, unsurprisingly, and he was happy enough to contribute his fair share - but he does see it as fundamentally being part of the game

to point out the obvious, check out who he's left out: sete and marc. that's where he can't let go of the grudges... because it's not about the offence itself as much as it is about the betrayal. this is the thing with valentino, right, it's about what kind of bond you had with him. if you weren't his friend in the first place and then piss him off as a rival then, y'know, whatever. obviously he's going to be vicious in trying to get back at you, but also he's really not going to waste his time feeling too aggrieved by it. I mean, think about how all the bullshit between him and casey dropped off sharply post-2012... from valentino's end anyway. think about how jorge and valentino pretty quickly got on again whenever they weren't fighting for supremacy within yamaha. they weren't friends in the first place, then they were enemies for competitive reasons for a while there, then it's over and valentino is basically happy enough to call it bygones

but... if it's a certain kind of bond you had with him and then you wrong him... that little mental list of all his past grievances, all your past transgressions, that's where it comes in. that's where he ices you out. denies you any emotional warmth. ensures that any interaction going forward is conducted entirely on his terms. where even any public 'reconciliation' won't truly be sincere.... or, certainly he's not going to forget what happened. if something else happens... it's like you've always got the potential of triggering this lingering resentment, in a way, where all that past stuff is still primed and ready to be called upon. he certainly doesn't just let it go

or, as he puts it in his autobiography:

Biaggi and I never talk to each other. I mean, we've never had a real conversation, anything that's lasted more than the requisite time to insult each other or put each other down, in the nastiest way possible. In any case, I don't hate him. It's true, we've never been friends, but hatred is something different, and that's too serious a word to describe our relationship. Far too serious. No, we have a reciprocal antipathy. No doubt this is a result of what we do for a living and the fact that we both want to win every single time. And perhaps it's also a function of the fact that we have very different personalities and very different ways of seeing things. Still, I don't think this means we hate each other, as some journalists have written. I think I could feel hatred for someone, but only for someone far worse than anything Biaggi has done. For example, if I were betrayed by a friend, then, yes, I could hate him. But Biaggi will never betray my friendship for the simple reason that we are not, and never have been, friends. Our relationship is very clear: we compete on the track - outside the track, each goes his own way. You could say we detest each other cordially.

... I mean. he said it, not me. and given this book was first published in '05... biaggi can't betray his friendship because they were never friends... I'm not saying he's thinking about sete, but it has to at least be a possibility, right? he's talking about one rivalry here and refusing to even mention the other... and the one he's refusing to mention is the one where he was friends with the other bloke. I don't know, maybe that's reading too much into it! and anyway, even if this passage wasn't really about sete, it's obviously still revealing. "detest each other cordially" is essentially what he was doing with casey and jorge (or from his point of view in any case, not entirely sure they'd agree with that). the grudge comes when he feels let down by you... and then, yes, he'll never let it go

of course, he's willing to set aside his grievances for a while if there's sufficient motivation for him to do so. in 2009, when he had so definitively won that rivalry with sete, why bother kicking up a fuss? in 2016, quite frankly it was just too much, and it was getting to the point where it was obviously hurting him too. on the one hand there was the media furore that had been going on non-stop since sepang, on the other hand it was also hurting his own approach to racing. there's reports from the time how visibly aggrieved he still was in the first few races of the season, and it took until they got back to europe for him to... y'know, have fun again. it's not sustainable to be walking around with a constant dark cloud over your head and broadcasting burning resentment towards your two main rivals. certainly not for someone like valentino - he needs to be having fun! the slight rapprochement needed to happen, in a way, because otherwise those years would have been even worse for everyone involved. but that doesn't actually translate to forgetting any of those grudges. this is about convenience more than anything else

goes to show, really... most of the time he doesn't take these things personally. I talked about it a bit in this post, how maybe it's also something that changed over time for him: the question of whether he was willing to develop these kinds of bonds in the first place with competitors... because he does possess a certain level of self-awareness in terms of what these kinds of rivalries are like and what they do to interpersonal relationships. ideally, you don't want to be hurt by a friend like that, right? better not to have that kind of emotional attachment with your competitors in the first place. how unfortunate it'd be if all those years after sete the circumstances aligned for him to see a competitor as something like a friend again... because, after all, those are the only people who could betray him. those are the only people where he thinks he could truly hate them

[niklausie]

hehehe… coming to a dashboard near you this friday 🥰

[lovesickeros]

lord its so dark in here the sahara desert of tsaritsa content you are like a shining oasis. your characterisation of her compels me & mihoyo would be hard pressed to top it imo.!! caaaaan i humbly request yr thoughts on her first meeting w a reader of any kind, or maybe even multiple kinds (sagau, sagau god au, isekai, etc) if you so desire...

it really is like a desert here. being the fan of a character we aren't getting until the last damn nation is driving me up a wall but i will persevere bc if nothing else i support morally bankrupt women in media. we r in a severe drought over here but i do my best. unfortunately nothing i say is ever coherent so pull out your translation notes its abt 2 be messy

also this got out of hand but thats bc first meetings w the tsaritsa are tricky to write + a LOT of her characterization lies in deeper exploration then just surface level yknow...NOT A DIG AT YOU this is just my excuse for rambling. gently pats the tsaritsa she can hold so much complexity i do not have the word count to delve into it completely :]

gonna talk cult au for a bit here though because that's 99% of my content. and honestly? she thrives in sub au's of the cult au like villain au + imposter au. it's basically made for her. i mean, early days, the imposter au had been going around for a little while but one of the first few ideas was the Fatui taking reader in so like. it kinda technically actually was. pretty sure cult au Tsaritsa popped up because of the imposter au. a lot of it's writers kinda left though which. man am i getting old or.

anyway.

there isn't much of a chance her first impression is all that positive. at best it's usually neutral, imo, but rarely if ever positive. specifically because i view the Tsaritsa as someone who isn't as fanatical as most of the acolytes typically are towards the creator. she's not exactly going to worship the ground you walk on unlike a certain geo lizard. which is partially why i think she thrives in the sub au's i mentioned.

imposter au, for example. she meets you at your lowest. there's no gaudy extravagance or pampering from the acolytes waiting for you because your own acolytes have turned on you. for all intents and purposes you aren't a "god" at all. which is why i don't think she meshes well with normal cult au reader. the Fatui are made up of outcasts, basically, and imposter au slots right in just perfectly. you're weak, at your lowest, when you meet the Fatui in the imposter au. and the Fatui can help you, too.

a mutual exchange, really. the Tsaritsa sees a tool she can use to one up the rest of the nations and especially Archons, and she has no qualms about you using her and the Fatui in turn. you both want something out of it, after all. whether you just want to be safe from the rest of the acolytes, or you want revenge, or whatever else..she'll give you the power to fulfill it, and she gains the strongest piece on the chessboard when all is said and done.

the best way i can describe the first meeting is "practical", i suppose. she sees an opportunity in you. the ultimate gamble. because if she "saves" you, and you dont trust anyone else because they tried to kill you, well..she holds all the cards, doesn't she?

but the Tsaritsa, imo, is just as capable of being just as fanatical towards you as anyone else. she just won't worship you as the creator. but as yourself? clawing your way back to your divine power and taking back what belongs to you? the Tsaritsa is, to me, a character who's character flourishes in long-term fics more because she changes a LOT between "just met reader" and after having been with reader for some time. she's practically apathetic at the beginning but a lot of her character, in my characterization, shines through LONG after the first meeting.

[hamable]

Now that the season’s over I want to share one brief, gruesome theory I had in regards to Lucy’s death and KLCK’s wrath.

Kipperlily felt that the school favored certain students over others. I started wracking my brain for a time when a staff member would have stepped in for TBK in such a way that it was not only perceivable as an unfair advantage, but would so fully fuck over KLCK, her party, or the student body as a whole. I landed on one thing: Aguefort going God Mode near the end of spring break.

He turned into a giant. He moved the very sun in the sky. Mountains were molehills and enemies were ants.

When The Bad Kids found Lucy’s body, the detail of her being struck with unimaginable bludgeoning force stood out to me. It doesn’t fit the timeline, and didn’t end up matching the rest of the evidence they gained from Lucy’s body, but the momentary idea that Aguefort had fully crushed Lucy and possibly others during spring break bc he came to The Bad Kids’ Aid was a concept that rocked my world. As much as I love how the season played out, KLCK being right and the fault being on Aguefort would’ve been a wicked interesting plotline to follow

[marzipanandminutiae]

speaking of "they wouldn't do that/talk like that," I read a fic once where Lucille put on blue glitter eyeshadow to welcome Thomas home from a trip

it was not a modern AU

I. why.

(like I don't expect people to know everything about history- I sure as hell don't, and the source movie leaves out a presidential assassination that happened smack-dab in the middle of the first act's timeline, in the same city. but. Blue. Glitter. Eyeshadow.)

[stormbreaker101]

I still can't get over the Circe Saga.

Hermes gives Odysseus a tool to even the playing field. He anticipates and encourages Odysseus to overpower her on a physical, magical, and sexual level. He phrases this help as "us[ing] more than words." He wants Odysseus to give up speech and mercy as much as the other gods do.

But ultimately it's Odysseus's words that save him and his crew. It's him telling Circe about his faith to Penelope that convinces her to help him.

There are other ways of persuasion, indeed.

[lesbiansanemi]

Officially deciding I shall not be going to work tomorrow because of the snowstorm so…. Yay? Extra day off?

[deus-ex-mona]

i miss her…

[its-no-biggie]

me finishing a good story: wow i need more of this immediately *opens ao3*

me finishing a GREAT story: wow. *doesnt even think about consuming anything else for the next 3 days*

[yandere-daydreams]

Remembered in your red tailed hawk Diluc ramble that you briefly mentioned that kaeya was the reason Diluc was in the situation in the first place

Got me thinking what type of hybrid kaeya would be

Would he also be a bird of prey? I would imagine he would be an albatross of some sort, soaring through the skies, never really finding a place to call home.

Maybe after visiting diluc and his darling, he thinks he wants a bit of that too

as featured in the lovely drawings contributed by @smokey-cat, kaeya is a peacock hybrid!!! i was tempted to make him one of the big cats (a jaguar, in particular) or a bird of prey, but i think a very eye-catching bird that's heavily associated with luxury and wealth but also frequently regarded as 'background dressing' and wrongly deemed purely ornamental is such a god fit for kaeya. i'm also in love with the idea that, because peacocks can't fly very far and aren't migrational, he's stuck in the same big empty house after crepus dies and diluc goes on his little kidnapping spree self-discovery adventure. it really preps him to be ready to steal away diluc's shiny new mate as soon as his feet touch the ground.

[hollowflight-propaganda]

Gonna come out the gate swinging and say that the revelation of Clay being a bigwings works for what it is, and those who criticize only this part of the book need to read it again.

Clay's arc in this book is realizing that he isn't the monster he was raised to be, which he fulfills before this point. He didn't bring himself to kill Fjord because even when faced with the possibility of getting killed, he won't go against his morals. When fighting Peril he very clearly said that he doesn't think the world needs to work this way. That he doesn't feel a killer inside of him, and that's not who he is.

Clay has already confronted this supposed monster inside of him by deciding to find a different way to fulfill the things he needs to do as a dragonet of destiny. At this point he doesn't have doubts about who he is, because he knows what his true values are now, and that he can still hold onto those in the face of adversity.

Kestrel's last words before she takes off are, "Listen, MudWing. For all your noble talk, you're not going to be any use to the others if you can't fight and kill to defend them. Just think about that." This is only part until the reveal of Clay being a bigwings where this conflict is brought up again, because Clay knows now that he doesn't need to kill to defend those he cares about. Earlier in the book, Clay constantly thought about whether or not he'd have to kill, if he'd succumb to this monster inside of him. But now, after being put in a death arena (the perfect outer conflict to go against this inner conflict I might add) and finding a way around having to do so, he knows this isn't true.

"But that's not realistic!" I hear you cry. I think that's what Tsunami and Glory are supposed to represent in this book. Tsunami has to kill Gill in self defense, and Glory kills Fjord to save Clay. These scenes existing beside Clay's arc show that yes, sometimes killing may be necessary in a life or death scenario, but it's possible to find a less violent way out if you want to try and look for it.

That's supposed to be the thought process behind this whole arc, things are resolved not by following the Talons plan, not by choosing one of the SandWing sisters, and not by conforming to what the world perceives them as. They find their own way to stop the war.

And while the idea of never having to commit an act of violence to protect those you love in a world that's been wrecked by war is very idealistic I admit, remember that this ultimately is a book series aimed at kids. I'm not saying that in a, "It's not that serious, it's just a kids book," kinda way (that'd be very hypocritical of me after analyzing these dragons to hell and back), I'm saying it in a, "Remember what the target audience is," kinda way.

Tui's message to kids is one of being hopeful in the world, even when it's hard to see the good. Wings of Fire for being a very violent book series has always had a really hopeful message about not conforming to what society wants of you, and finding your own way to live the life you want to live.

Clay's arc in this book is exactly this. He's been raised by the Talons since birth to be a soldier for their cause, but he doesn't want to do it their way. So he decides he's not going to.

Clay's not a monster, and has never been. He's a bigwings. A big brother, a good friend, someone who will do anything for his family.

"Kestrel was wrong, all wrong about him, and she always had been. His strength wasn't for killing and violence; it was for protecting his brothers and sisters. He wasn't destined to be a monster. He wasn't a killer deep inside somewhere.

He was a bigwings."