#I have so much useless knowledge

[poetic-dumbass]

Deadass thought that was my cow for a second. Scared me half to death. But it's parker brown, not black.

But! I wonder that too! But I think it may have been Belphie's two-tone that came first, as although two-toned cattle are more common in horned breeds, polled breeds are more common in general and are generally solid colored. Think Limousin, Angus, Charolais, Braunvieh, and Red Poll. We just see more spotted or mottled cattle because they're prettier! Actually, if Belphie's hair were designed after any cow, I would say the Belgian Blue would be closest in coat style.

I was wondering if Belphie's dual hair color came first or when they thought it would be fun since his Familiar is a Bull and they tend to get two color pattern

[animentality]

archive of our own has taught me so much approximate knowledge about fandoms I'm not even in.

[psychomusic]

oc time again! + her town & culture (heavily inspired by pre-roman italic populations)

she is suri sauthon. her story is linked to my swtor imperial agent, tar'x, but most of her life except for the one year away where she meets him, is spent in a town in the mountains of mirial.

despite mirial being cold and desert, and many cities developing underground, her town flourishes thanks to a force nexus, venerated in the form of an ancient, sacred, alive crystal. the ecosystem of that mountain depended on what "the horned crystal" was capable of giving them, but mirialans couldn't live off of that alone, so they developed trade and some rudimental technology, even if oftentimes it was bought thanks to the highly profitable trade of a plant used to make medicines that slowed down aging and had overall healing properties.

note: everything that's generated by this nexus has these healing properties BUT they have to be processed, except for those who bathed in the waters of the cavity under the crystal - the "real" nexus, but not the worshipped one. the waters were sacred but they were not thought to be miraculous, unlike the crystal, who instead was thought of as the keystone of the ecosystem: without it, everything would fall apart (and that is partially true: the cavity was the "real" nexus but thanks to the crystal, also strong in the force, the properties were spread all over the mountains). those who bathed in the cavity's waters - so, all of the town, who had a sort of baptism there - could eat the plant, make whatever food with it, and not only that plant, but everything generated by the nexus, that, again, had similar properties. this allowed people to live up to normal life-spans without advanced medicines or, much, really. to those who didn't live there, though, after the processing, had incredible effects, slowing down aging - for those who took it regularly - and making people able to live up to half a century more than the average]

originally, there were four tribes of nomads that lived thanks to horned farm animals that decided to settle down into one bigger town and other smaller settlements, to live off of transhumance. this division of the tribes stayed into the political and social organization: every person belonged to one tribe specifically, and had slightly different rituals and culture. for examples, each tribe had their own priests and healers, with different techniques and traditions. the town, tho, was guided by a group of people in the high priesthood, a position you could reach only by having earned the trust of all tribes. those high priests had many roles: they guided the people into sacred processions common to all the tribes, they managed the trading with outsiders, they did the maintenance of the temple of the summit (the one that functioned as casket to the crystal) and created a special liquid to offer the crystal that helps it grow.

this particular temple was important because 1. it was very visible, from every angle of the town, and it became an important identity symbol; 2. it stored the venerated horned crystal; 3. it had the altar where sacrifices were made for the crystals. that altar had a hole connected to the cavity, that allowed the liquids to reach the underground; 4. it had various symbols: statues representing each tribe + the high priesthood, and typical mirialan tattoos carved into the wood of the trees that served as columns for the temple, symbolizing 8 values that who dared to enter HAD to have; 5. it was on the way to an important lake (called "mother lake" because the lake the town was built around to depended on the waters of that other lake) where they traveled to in important processions; 6. it was said that a the wizard who unified the tribes made it with its magic, making the plant grow to hold the temple's roof. this wizard was, actually, a force user, obv.

BACK TO HER THOUGH: she's daughter of one of the high priests, who was in charge of managing the trades with outsiders, and lives in a house on the mountains with her mother and him. her parents are from different tribes (that's one of the things that earned him trust from the 4 tribes): when a child is born from two different tribes, they don't pick one to allign to, but they're usually linked automatically to the one with more relatives in it (in her case, the father's tribe: she had many uncles and aunts on his side while her mom only had one sister).

later, though, she got quite tied to her mother's tribe due to a mysterious illness that only her mother's tribe healer was able to cure. she spent 4 years (from 10 to 14 years old) living with the healer and learned her secrets. to better study, she wrote them down. when she returned home, she studied to become a priestess with her father. at 22 (the average age: you can't become priest before your 20s), she was supposed to take a test and become a priestess, but the healer of her mother's tribe died and the tribe asked her to take her place. she couldn't technically do that, but both tribes estimated both her and her parents and she was allowed to become both. she then decided to try to become a high priestess, and became one at 25 (a quite young age). being part of the council, she tried to convince the various tribe healers to unite their knowledges and write them down, and eventually made it. healers still remained tribe based but they now had an "upper, inter-tribe level" similar to high priesthood.

years later, the sacred horned crystal is stolen from the temple by some Hutt mercenaries looking for a profit. given the trust she has earned from all the tribes and the fact that her father is the high priest that deals with outsiders (and she's been hearing stories and advice about it since she was little), she is the one tasked with getting it back. without the growing crystal, the keystone to their ecosystem, the village would have lasted only a few years. in hrr quest, she meets imperial intelligence agent tar'x laran and, as they "solve the mystery" and fight to have it back, they get closer. they'll get married and have a daughter, Vegoia (who's the only one who actually will get to the plot of my story. this was all background)

[cult-of-the-eye]

i for one really hope that tmagp leans into the unethical psychological experiments path of the Magnus Institute cause oh boy do I have a lot to say about that

[wonder-worker]

"[Elizabeth Woodville's] piety as queen seems to have been broadly conventional for a fifteenth-century royal, encompassing pilgrimages, membership of various fraternities, a particular devotion to her name saint, notable generosity to the Carthusians, and the foundation of a chantry at Westminster after her son was born there. ['On other occasions she supported planned religious foundations in London, […] made generous gifts to Eton College, and petitioned the pope to extend the circumstances in which indulgences could be acquired by observing the feast of the Visitation']. One possible indicator of a more personal, and more sophisticated, thread in her piety is a book of Hours of the Guardian Angel which Sutton and Visser-Fuchs have argued was commissioned for her, very possibly at her request."

-J.L. Laynesmith, "Elizabeth Woodville: The Knight's Widow", "Later Plantagenet and Wars of the Roses Consorts: Power, Influence, Dynasty"

[liorlen]

this is the part where I should mention to everyone who came in for the fan art that I’m doing a masters in welsh and celtic studies and I will make ANYTHING relate to medieval welsh prose or poetry. this is a warning

[brw]

What kind of acting do you think Simon does I always imagine him in like a supernatural TV show like Buffy or in classic action flicks but in the most recent Avengers Academy it looked like he was in a fantasy show.

Historically Simon has seemed to be primarily employed in B and C tier Hollywood action films, although the first film he was ever in (sans the Mr Muscles kids TV show bit) was a spaghetti Western from Avengers #207. His big acting break was playing the villain in Arkon IV, acting across an early 80s Arnold Schwarzenegger, a role he lands in WCA v2 #6. The vibe of it is very sword-and-sorcery, Conan the Barbarian style, which was probably what the Avengers Academy film was referencing.

Simon also starred in the film Damage Control, with THE Marlon Brando and Shelly Long of all people??? from the hit marvel comic that everyone knows and loves, Damage Control v3 #3. Simon shows his entire bare booty ass in this comic, which is the most notable thing about the issue.

Beach Volleyball Bros 2 was mentioned in X-Force v6 #50, which when I heard it, I envisioned a terrible Baywatch (2017) rip-off, but it could really be anoying.

Simon was ALSO hired to star in an adaption of Macbeth, during Wonder Man v2. There's a few different films that he's brought on to work on during the course of this series, and Simon seems to struggle with being typecast in action-slop roles, which, given everything we listed so far, is not far off the mark.

Towards the 2000s with the gradual shift in media culture and what was popular, Simon gets numerous offers in different comics to be in reality TV shows. I don't think he accepts any of them, except for Wonder Man v3 where he's shooting a reality show to rehabiliate a villain lady?? I don't know, it's a truly awful comic so I rarely count it in Simon discussions.

Simon's also offered another action-role in War of the Realms: Journey into Mystery, which he also rejects because he's a pacifist at this stage in his life.

(also in this series, Simon mentions a love for Westerns which is a cute tie-in to his first ever proper role!)

And finally, it's not comics but Simon is yet again in films that appear to be terrible c-tier action flicks in the M.O.D.O.K. show, from his appearance in episode 7. Sorry for the quality, but it is called "BRUTE FORCE 2: KANGARUDE AWAKENING" and has him with some animatronic canine? I don't know what this is, but it's something.

Anyway, so yeah, he's mosly been in bad action films, but I could see him segwaying into one of those kind of supernatural TV shows, or something CW inspired, like The Vampire Diaries or Riverdale. He does have it in him to do something a little more classy I think, but only if he/writers lent a little harder into him having a 1940s-50s Hollywood sensibility. They should give him a screwball comedy, not these action films, they aren't enriching enough for him.

[nowwithgaypheromones]

Dissertations could be written about the particular neuroses of oldhead 4chan RLM fans

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

My favorite genre of book is the “list book,” where the contents are essentially one long, cut-and-dry list of information, organized in alphabetical order with no embellishments whatsoever, other than diagrammatic pictures which show the meaning of something. This includes dictionaries in English, foreign language-to-English dictionaries, encyclopedias on various subjects, toxic chemical transportation handbooks for truckers, etc.

[msdanvers]

Hi there! I absolutely love your gif sets! If you don’t mind me asking, what do you use to edit and make your gifs?

Also, how are you so darn good at finding the perfect images from the show? Do you just have a really good memory of when certain things happened?

omg thank you!! i use adobe photoshop to make them :) if you'd ever like to get into gifmaking, i could link some beginners tutorials!

and sjdfklsdjf i'm afraid the answer is yes i have unfortunately memorized a lotttt of it (and now that i'm getting into making gifs for new fandoms and having to find a specific shot without knowing which season it's even from: i'm remembering the Pain.)

howEVER if it's supercorp scenes you're trying to find, i have a cheat sheet right here for you: x. all credit goes to audrey @/criston-cole because i took screenshots of her google form to make this, back when she was doing a top 10 supercorp moments poll! it doesn't include s6 but still, it's helped me a lot :)

[louifrangos]

happy birthday formidable!!! u will always be famous

[madame-mongoose]

Sobs in wants people to read Frankenstein so I have more people to talk about it with

[sherlock-is-ace]

.

[thescarleteagle]

Are you ever just like, I have no actual skills that will help me survive life. Like, what is having entire musicals memorized going to do for me?

[exonerin]

17. What’s something you’ve learned about while doing research for a fic? 29. Share a bit from a fic you’ll never post OR from a scene that was cut from an already posted fic. (If you don’t have either, just share a random fic idea you have that you don’t plan on getting to.)

Two more questions from the list. Thank you so much! And they're fun questions, too.

17) That's actually a difficult question. For the obikin ones on AO3 right now, I don't think I had to do too much research.

In general, though, I have found Hanahaki fics are incredibly exhausting to write because I implement a number of additional rules. I don't want to spoil the fun yet, but you easily end up in an endless loop of research where you have the book of flowers and their meanings (language of flowers by Kate Greenaway is the best resource) on one hand, then google on the other hand to field questions like: 1) how big is this flower? Am I just choking my characters here? 2) is it edible? Am I willing to give my characters a severe case of the runs? Do I want them to be killed by these flowers through poison? (typically, the answer is 'no' at the start, and then near the end I'm actively looking for flowers that kill).

My main problem here is that it's generally speaking difficult to find the toxicity of flowers. You would assume people stuff everything in their mouths they can find, but oh well.

For another fic, I tried to figure out how English law worked in the Gregorian era. Let me give you one recommendation: don't. All these sources were too succinct and the more detailed ones contradicted each other. It was an exercise in futility, and frustrating, too.

29) Share a bit from a fic I'll never post. Funnily enough, I talked about the nightmarish fic in another post. Now, I have 3554 words to pick from in that snippet, and I'll have to be a bit selective.

It's a bit weird to share this anyway, actually. Either way, in this fic I kill Anakin at the start. So, Anakin is a ghost but he's bound to the dusty battlefield where he died. Since he can't leave, he never knows that the Republic falls and all Jedi are killed.

Through some events, during which I give Anakin hope and then crush it again quite cruelly, he ends up on Coruscant (as ghost). There he learns the Jedi are mostly dead, save some fugitives. This includes Obi-Wan. Thus, Anakin starts looking for Obi-Wan, only to eventually learn Obi-Wan was also killed when the wanted posters are updated to reflect this.

And then, Anakin's soul dies, too.

In my defense, I was in a terrible mood that day. It seemed a constructive way to deal with it. Usually, I delete these snippets, and I genuinely do not know what compelled me to save this.

I picked a snippet after the opening scene to avoid some graphic details. Nevertheless, there is a big trigger warning for Character Death here. So, proceed with caution. Also, I never looked this over again, I did a very rudimentary spelling check, but it will be a rough read.

===================

There was no death. There was the Force.

All living beings eventually reunited with the Force, only to be remolded and born again. Yet, he woke up. Although he had been cold, he was pleasantly warm as he woke. His eyes were still closed, watching the backs of his eyelids. There was no hurry, he didn't think so.

He had collapsed on his side, and orange dust stuck to his cheek, reminding him of sand. As he sighed, he could feel the grains on his tongue, gritty and dry.

Slowly, he opened his eyes.

The ringing had stopped, but his vision remained blurry. He wasn't concerned, though.

There was no emotion. There was peace.

His mind was blissfully empty, sapping from the panic, the loud ringing, and the knowledge he would faint. His breathing was still shallow, but slow, and his lungs expanded again. He imagined droids felt similar when they were rebooted.

As he sat up, however, he fought a wave of nausea. While he felt more relaxed than he had in a long time, he felt squeamish. Something was off. His gaze dipped to his abdomen, but the weight of the beam had disappeared. Not a trace of the wound was left. Suspicion made him glance around him.

Oh.

Okay. That explained the absence of a fatal wound.

His body was still on the battlefield, pierced through by a durasteel beam. The pool of blood around him was already absorbed by the dust, staining the orange around him a brown halo. The wound looked grizzly, he noted with a dull detachment. Yet, that wasn't what drew his attention.

Obi-Wan Kenobi was curled around Anakin Skywalker's dead body, sobbing.

Around them, the battle still raged on, but Obi-Wan didn't pay them any mind. Curiously, Anakin lifted to his feet, swaying before collapsing on the sand again.

"That was a terrible idea," he scoffed, closing his eyes briefly to ground himself. Waking up after fainting, he had felt grounded, but that was clearly a lie. A low-level nausea remained, settling nicely in his stomach. Anakin breathed through it before opening his eyes again.

Although Obi-Wan still clutched Anakin Skywalker's body to his chest, his gaze seemed to be on him. Anakin tilted his head. Obi-Wan mirrored the motion.

"Hello there," he said, stealing Obi-Wan's catchphrase.

He had never seen Obi-Wan so distraught before, and his heart clenched painfully at the tear tracks that ran down his Master's cheeks.

"Anakin?" Obi-Wan asked. "Is that you?"

Confused, Anakin tilted his head in the other direction. Obi-Wan didn't follow his example. Dread grew like poison ivy, filling every square centimeter in his body with its tight grip. Had he imagined the eye contact?

"Obi-Wan," he said, louder.

Obi-Wan didn't react. Panic had never felt so acute and all-encompassing before.

"Obi-Wan!"

"Anakin?"

Obi-Wan's gaze passed right through him as he turned his head to study the smoke surrounding them. Ignoring the nausea, Anakin crawled closer, lifting a hand to place it on Obi-Wan's shoulder and passing right through.

His fingers raked through fabric, flesh, bones, and even stone as he tried to touch Obi-Wan.

"I'm here," Anakin yelled in Obi-Wan's ear, but Obi-Wan didn't react. Unable to do anything, Anakin watched Obi-Wan cradle Anakin closer to his chest, muttering apology after apology, smothering the corpse with featherlight kisses on the forehead, and soft strokes through his matted curls.

Anakin's eyes burned, but he refused to cry. He blinked rapidly to clear his vision from the tears that welled anyway. Obi-Wan's white plastoid armor was coated in blood, but he didn't seem to realize or care. Feeling too small for the body he no longer inhabited, Anakin lifted to his feet, trying to see through the thick haze that had settled over the battlefield.

Watching his Master grief felt wrong, but Anakin was powerless to stop it. Instead, he was forced to watch every emotion, usually hidden behind a carefully curated mask and thick shields, play out on his Master's face. He swallowed thickly, feeling so utterly helpless.

Eventually, the din of battle stopped, replaced by an eerie silence. Clones gathered around Obi-Wan and Anakin's dead body. Anakin could hear the murmur of conversations in identical voices. It took an eternity before Commander Cody could convince Obi-Wan to return to the ship. Jealous of the brief hand on Obi-Wan's shoulder, Anakin started after them. He knew Obi-Wan needed every bit of support he could get, but that was Anakin's place.

After a few steps, his body stopped progressing. Although he still walked, the procession of clones and Obi-Wan left him behind. An animal sound escaped him as he realized they were leaving him behind. Wildly, he clawed at the air, but the fog offered no resistance. Helplessly, he watched Obi-Wan retreat into the fog, still carrying his limp body. Howling and wailing, he tried to reach them, but he was powerless to watch them disappear. Clones walked around and through him, following Obi-Wan without a problem.

He was chained to this place!

His throat was raw, and the silhouettes of the vanguard gone, when Anakin slumped on the ground. As he clenched his hands into fists, the dust didn't move, unperturbed by his motions. He screamed until his voice gave out, a hoarse and painful gurgle in the back of his throat.

"No," he pleaded with the Force, his lips shaping around the world as he breathed it. "No, no, no."

They were the Team.

Crying ugly tears, and sobbing loudly despite the lack of voice, Anakin curled into a fetal position, ignoring the rough press of dust against his body.

In a meaningless scuffle on an Outer Rim planet, Anakin Skywalker was killed in action. His story ended here, doomed to haunt the dusty planes. Too numb to muster any anger, he closed his eyes, curling tighter until his forehead touched his knees.

Eventually, the dust settled, coating him in a thin layer of dust. Anakin had cracked one eye open to confirm he could see the sky before closing them again.

Blue.

Whatever.

He fought against the tears again and again and again, but he always lost. His eyes were raw and swollen from the tears and his nose was permanently stuffed. There was no one to comfort him.

For many rotations, Anakin Skywalker didn't move. Although a part of him had decided he would never move again, a loud sound startled him from his mourning. As he sat upright, his eyes grew wide in horror.

The decomposed bodies of clone troopers littered the wide open plane. Parts of battle droids were strewn around, already rusting, exposed as they were to the dust that swirled lazily above the ground, obscuring the rocks underneath.

Although he knew it was futile, he reached for a helmet. He gasped as the bucket rolled away under his touch. His fingers trembled as he hurried after the helmet to pick it up.

Disbelief left him speechless as he twisted the bucket in his hands, his leather gloves left white traces in the orange dust that coated the helmet. Carefully, he placed the helmet on the ground again before trying to lift a rifle.

He turned the blaster in his hands, fingers gliding over the ridges and scope. Stunned, he placed the blaster back on the ground.

What else could he do?

A brittle hope brewed in his stomach, mixing with the perpetual nausea. His gaze flitted over the battlefield, looking for other things to touch. There wasn't much. Only the dead were left behind.

Cautiously, he turned into the direction Obi-Wan had headed in. It was unwise to foster any hope, he knew. Letting reality crush the fragile feeling was better. Inhaling deeply, tasting the dust in the air, he took one step.

Then, a second.

A third followed after.

Each step led to another one until the battlefield was well behind him. No invisible barrier had stopped him, and Anakin was filled with incredulous hope. As the day passed into night, Anakin continued to walk. Eventually, he would find some form of civilization, he knew. At the time, he hadn't read the mission briefing, so he couldn't remember why they had fought over this planet.

Resources, he decided. And if there were resources, then there were also people exploiting those resources.

For many days, he walked, first randomly, then in a grid. No human could hope to cover every square centimeter in their search, but Anakin didn't have an alternative. If he wanted to return to Coruscant, he would need some form of transport.

One day, he was back on the battlefield. His shoulders slumped. He shook his head wildly, but it couldn't stop the tears. Legs, which were already unsteady from his long trek, gave out under him. Sharp rocks dug into his knees, leaving abrasions on his skin through his pants as he fell onto the ground.

He had hoped. And reality had crushed his silly, foolish hope. He had known from the start that his hope would only lead to bitter disappointment, but he couldn't have imagined how much it would hurt.

Pain and desperation made Anakin gag, but he hadn't eaten anything in eternity, so his dry heaving only irritated his throat.

"Obi-Wan," he whined, wishing his Master was here. Without Anakin to keep up the act, all his secrets would have been exposed, he judged. He wondered whether Obi-Wan would treat him kindly, despite knowing everything Anakin had done.

He was chilled to the bone, the goosebumps almost painful as they formed.

"Obi-Wan," he whispered, but no one would hear him. He inhaled raggedly in a last attempt to stop sobbing. It didn't work. Of course, it didn't.

Everyone had been hopeful the war would be over soon. Blindly, Anakin stared at the ground, wondering why he still existed on this desolate planet.

===================

[skywarpie]

do you think that Steele (from the animated Balto movie) was vaguely based off Togo? 👀 sometimes I wonder if that was taken into consideration since he was the lead dog and used to being #1 but then Balto showed up midway through the medicine run

(if we ignore the villain storyline)

Maybe? But Togo and Balto were owned by Leonhard Seppala. The markings for Togo and Steele I guess could be argued as similar but idk. If so it's a really shitty way to honor the real hero :/

I know a lot more about this whole thing than I should tbh