#This is mostly an unpopular opinion because hes an unpopular character

[cherrydrop-rambles]

Unpopular opinion but I 100% think that Kenji deserves more fanart >:(

I would fix that if I didn't have a million things to do tomorrow but just a general hes hella underrated

I know thats rich coming from the Kenji Noda fan but

I said what I said...

[borgialucrezia]

peaky blinders — 4x06 created by steven knight

[togglesbloggle]

For the Reverse Unpopular Opinion meme, Lamarckism!

(This is an excellent ask.)

Lamarck got done a bit dirty by the textbooks, as one so often is. He's billed as the guy who articulated an evolutionary theory of inherited characteristics, inevitably set up as an opponent made of straw for Darwin to knock down. The example I recall my own teachers using in grade school was the idea that a giraffe would strain to reach the highest branches of a tree, and as a result, its offspring would be born with slightly longer necks. Ha-ha-ha, isn't-that-silly, isn't natural selection so much more sensible?

But the thing is, this wasn't his idea, not even close. People have been running with ideas like that since antiquity at least. What Lamarck did was to systematize that claim, in the context of a wider and much more interesting theory.

Lamarck was born in to an era where natural philosophy was slowly giving way to Baconian science in the modern sense- that strange, eighteenth century, the one caught in an uneasy tension between Newton the alchemist and Darwin the naturalist. This is the century of Ben Franklin and his key and his kite, and the awed discovery that this "electricity" business was somehow involved in living organisms- the discovery that paved the way for Shelley's Frankenstein. This was the era when alchemy was fighting its last desperate battles with chemistry, when the division between 'organic' and 'inorganic' chemistry was fundamental- the first synthesis of organic molecules in the laboratory wouldn't occur until 1828, the year before Lamarck's death. We do not have atoms, not yet. Mendel and genetics are still more than a century away; we won't even have cells for another half-century or more.

Lamarck stepped in to that strange moment. I don't think he was a bold revolutionary, really, or had much interest in being one. He was profoundly interested in the structure and relationships between species, and when we're not using him as a punching bag in grade schools, some people manage to remember that he was a banging good taxonomist, and made real progress in the classification of invertebrates. He started life believing in the total immutability of species, but later was convinced that evolution really was occurring- not because somebody taught him in the classroom, or because it was the accepted wisdom of the time, but through deep, continued exposure to nature itself. He was convinced by the evidence of his senses.

(Mostly snails.)

His problem was complexity. When he'd been working as a botanist, he had this neat little idea to order organisms by complexity, starting with the grubbiest, saddest little seaweed or fern, up through lovely flowering plants. This was not an evolutionary theory, just an organizing structure; essentially, just a sort of museum display. But when he was asked to do the same thing with invertebrates, he realized rather quickly that this task had problems. A linear sorting from simple to complex seemed embarrassingly artificial, because it elided too many different kinds of complexity, and ignored obvious similarities and shared characteristics.

When he went back to the drawing board, he found better organizing schema; you'd recognize them today. There were hierarchies, nested identities. Simple forms with only basic, shared anatomical patterns, each functioning as a sort of superset implying more complex groups within it, defined additively by the addition of new organs or structures in the body. He'd made a taxonomic tree.

Even more shockingly, he realized something deep and true in what he was looking at: this wasn't just an abstract mapping of invertebrates to a conceptual diagram of their structures. This was a map in time. Complexities in invertebrates- in all organisms!- must have been accumulating in simpler forms, such that the most complicated organisms were also the youngest.

This is the essential revolution of Lamarckian evolution, not the inherited characteristics thing. His theory, in its full accounting, is actually quite elaborate. Summarized slightly less badly than it is in your grade school classroom (though still pretty badly, I'm by no means an expert on this stuff), it looks something like this:

As we all know, animals and plants are sometimes generated ex nihilo in different places, like maggots spontaneously appearing in middens. However, the spontaneous generation of life is much weaker than we have supposed; it can only result in the most basic, simple organisms (e.g. polyps). All the dizzying complexity we see in the world around us must have happened iteratively, in a sequence over time that operated on inheritance between one organism and its descendants.

As we all know, living things are dynamic in relation to inorganic matter, and this vital power includes an occasional tendency to gain in complexity. However, this tendency is not a spiritual or supernatural effect; it's a function of natural, material processes working over time. Probably this has something to do with fluids such as 'heat' and 'electricity' which are known to concentrate in living tissues. When features appear spontaneously in an organism, that should be understood as an intrinsic propensity of the organism itself, rather than being caused by the environment or by a divine entity. There is a specific, definite, and historically contingent pattern in which new features can appear in existing organisms.

As we all know, using different tissue groups more causes them to be expressed more in your descendants, and disuse weakens them in the same way. However, this is not a major feature in the development of new organic complexity, since it could only move 'laterally' on the complexity ladder and will never create new organs or tissue groups. At most, you might see lineages move from ape-like to human-like or vice versa, or between different types of birds or something; it's an adaptive tendency that helps organisms thrive in different environments. In species will less sophisticated neural systems, this will be even less flexible, because they can't supplement it with willpower the way that complex vertebrates can.

Lamarck isn't messing around here; this is a real, genuinely interesting model of the world. And what I think I'm prepared to argue here is that Lamarck's biggest errors aren't his. He has his own blind spots and mistakes, certainly. The focus on complexity is... fraught, at a minimum. But again and again, what really bites him in the ass is just his failure to break with his inherited assumptions enough. The parts of this that are actually Lamarckian, that is, are the ideas of Lamarck, are very clearly groping towards a recognizable kind of proto-evolutionary theory.

What makes Lamarck a punching bag in grade-school classes today is the same thing that made it interesting; it's that it was the best and most scientific explanation of biological complexity available at the time. It was the theory to beat, the one that had edged out all the other competitors and emerged as the most useful framework of the era. And precisely none of that complexity makes it in to our textbooks; they use "Lamarckianism" to refer to arguments made by freaking Aristotle, and which Lamarck himself accepted but de-emphasized as subordinate processes. What's even worse, Darwin didn't reject this mechanism either. Darwin was totally on board with the idea as a possible adaptive tendency; he just didn't particularly need it for his theory.

Lamarck had nothing. Not genetics, not chromosomes, not cells, not atomic theory. Geology was a hot new thing! Heat was a liquid! What Lamarck had was snails. And on the basis of snails, Lamarck deduced a profound theory of complexity emerging over time, of the biosphere as a(n al)chemical process rather than a divine pageant, of gradual adaptation punctuated by rapid innovation. That's incredible.

There's a lot of falsehood in the Lamarckian theory of evolution, and it never managed to entirely throw off the sloppy magical thinking of what came before. But his achievement was to approach biology and taxonomy with a profound scientific curiosity, and to improve and clarify our thinking about those subjects so dramatically that a theory of biology could finally, triumphantly, be proven wrong. Lamarck is falsifiable. That is a victory of the highest order.

[minisculemars]

so I saw Joker 2 and while it has problems, I did mostly enjoy it. incoming unpopular opinion:

MASSIVE spoilers. obviously.

I think its funny how people say that the film "betrayed" the character by having arthur say he wasnt the joker. I disagree. the courtroom scene with him and gary couldn't have made it more obvious how the joker ISN'T a character he plays. because when arthur tries to perform as him it's just a disaster. he can't "turn on" the joker that was on the murray franklin show. joker from the murray franklin show wasn't joker, it was just arthur... it's always been arthur. there never was a joker. I mean do people seriously think his rant towards murray was exceptional clown improv and not arthur speaking from the heart?

there was always something off to me about how this site treats joker and arthur like two seperate entities and this movie confirms that. I always thought of them the same. the clown getup just gives him the push to, ironically, be his real self. idk fight me

[danandfuckingjonlmao]

ok some things i LIKED about tua 4 since we all have talked exclusively about what we hated (SPOILERS AHEAD):

idc what anyone says the baby shark bit was iconic every time it came on i jammed

klaus had a comic book storyline from hotel oblivion!! let’s go source material!!

diego and luther being himbos

allison and klaus friendship

the entire birthday party scene was hilarious and fun and so THEM ok

the road trip scene that was in the trailer such iconic sibling goofy clownery they’re fucking idiots

klaus. he was in it. any time i get to see my little freak is time well spent.

incredibly unpopular opinion but i liked the ending i think they need an end from the cycle of apocalypses and suffering like they deserve a rest they’ve earned it and it was sweet that they all went together and the “i love you guys………but you’re all such fucking assholes” and then “fuck you” and everyone laughing and crying and THEN AND THEN ALL THE CHARACTERS FROM THE VARIOUS SEASONS BEING AT THE END i was SOBBING

klaus having a podcast of himself giving himself affirmations like that’s so funny

they actually gave somewhat of a shit about each other like diego was so DAD my babies have grown up but not too much they’re still fucking toddlers

lila is so pretty and funny and hot and unhinged she means so much to me

lila and klaus friendship!! lila and allison!! bonding!!

gene and jean were SUCH classic umbrella academy characters. loved them.

viktor gets all the pussy

i cannot stress how much all of the group scenes were so fucking sibling i love them ok

NO LUTHER AND ALLISON INCEST THANK FUCK

THUNDERBOLT THE GHOST DOG <3<3<3

klaus and claire oh my god i love uncle klaus so much and he loves her so much

seeing sober klaus and how hard he tried and then the heartbreak when that went away because he’s KLAUS he’s gerard way’s trauma self insert. as much as i want klaus to be safe and content and free from all this bullshit it was just so consistent and i can appreciate that. and i cried like a little bitch it was truly devastating but it was just sooooo klaus. also getting to see him make it incredibly clear that he didn’t want his powers back—him being the ONLY ONE who didn’t want his powers back—was important to me idk. and he was LOVED like he has a family!! he is cared for!! ahhHHHHHH!! love it

claire was great and getting to see her and allison and their tumultuous relationship and their love for each other after all of these seasons of allison looking for her and just wanting to be with her daughter

klaus got dave’s dog tags <3

more flashbacks to brellie kids!!

getting answers to some series-long mysteries

the underground subway system between timelines was so fucking cool and mindfucky 100/10

klaus’s look being reminiscent of s1 sorry that was my favourite klaus look ok

their sort of evolved powers when they got them back

so many good one liners and comedic scenes

ben being a crypto bro is SO FUNNY

will add stuff as i think of it. this is incredibly out of character for me i am an eternal pessimist but i did enjoy s4 (mostly because, as an eternal pessimist, my expectations are always low) so here we are.

[mikkeneko]

Reverse unpopular opinion meme: the Sunshot campaign?

I really love the concept of the Sunshot Campaign, and I like the little we did get of it!

On the liveaction side, budget concerns (you can only hire so many extras and filming fights is expensive) and on the novel side, the fact that military campaigns simply aren't the author's main focus means we don't see much of it. But I like the parts we do see, and I love the space it gives us to fill out more.

From discussions and meta I've seen since, it seems like this sort of concept -- a civil war between cultivation sects -- really is not all that common a plot device in xianxia. Not that cultivation sects don't clash (and backstab each other) in other types of stories, but those tend to be more on the level of individual grudges and skirmishes/raids than a full out war.

I love the way the Sunshot Campaign handles the concept of a cultivator war in part because of this sense that this never should have happened, that nobody wanted this. That this is such an incredibly painful and senseless waste of life and talent. These people are meant to be improving themselves and helping the world, and instead they're wasting their lives in this ugly human-against-human conflict. Nie Mingjue of course has his father's vengeance to consider, but even with him I don't get the sense that he wanted this war; he was merely the first person on the scene with the will and the guts to get dug in about it.

I love how the Sunshot Campaign is spearheaded and led by young men. So many of the older, more seasoned generation got wiped out in the first clashes, and now you have these youths -- some of them literally still in their teens -- fighting for the life of a land free of domination and enslavement. And I love that the mostly-left-to-the-imagination timeline gives so many spaces for the characters to interact with each other, support each other (or not!) in times of pain and hardship.

And I love that this is a fantasy war concept with a Dark Sorcerer type who is pretty unambiguously on the Side of Good. :D (That is one thing I like a little better about the novel/donghua version of the SSC compared to the liveactions, which felt the need to make Wen Ruohan a Dark Lord too.)

I love the Sunshot campaign! And I love fics which expand on it (I once again have to consider Better Things to Do with a Flute in Wartime as one of the best unpackings I've seen of it in the fandom.)

[braghis]

Listen. I had fun the last time, so i'm gonna leave here another list of my Riordanverse unpopular opinions/hot takes. I hope no one is gonna cancel me:

- Throwing every single female character in the hunters is lazy writing and kinda OOC for Reyna;

- The Cupid scene is disgusting and the fact that it was made by a queer god makes it even worse;

- Jason and Nico's friendship >>> Percy and Jason's friendship. Nico and Jason were more foils than the latter and Percy will ever be;

- Leo and Nico should have been friends, and the fact that Leo was so scarred of him in HoO is wasted potential;

- Today Percy is basically the not-so-unconfirmed most powerful demigod BUT both Nico and Hazel have the potential to being more powerful than him. However, since Percy is based on Rick's own son he refuses to elaborate on it;

- Actually GROVER is Percy's best friend, not Jason, and in HoO Annabeth and Piper had a more "kinda homoerotic bromance" going on than their boyfriends ever had;

- Aside from that, Jason is clearly alive. Trow that ToA scene away;

- Nico killing Bryce Lawrence is both the most terrifying and the best scene in both PJo and HoO;

- It would have been better if Hazel and Frank were friends-crushingoneachother during HoO and started dating in ToA;

- Riordan's amatonormativity wasted the potential of many characters (like Nico and Leo) and the potential of many friendships;

- Caleo is acceptable in HoO but in ToA it fucking sucks;

- Actually it would have been interesting if Calypso discovered herself as a lesbian during ToA OR in a possible Leo's standalone novel;

- In terms of capabilities, storylines and roles in the plot Percy, Annabeth, Nico, Hazel and Reyna are Riordan's most badass characters. Others (mostly Thalia, Jason and Piper) have the potential but are underdeveloped;

- And that in my opinion is HoO biggest problem: the series has many new interesting characters (Hazel, Leo, Reyna, Jason) but they are underdeveloped in favor of 1) romance and 2) Percabeth being in the major spotlight;

- I have mixed feeling about Percy and Annabeth being part of the Seven;

- Fierrochase >>>>> Solangelo;

- Tsats is utter dogshit and it is REALLY hard to consider it canon;

- Canon Solangelo is ableist and the fact that a big part of the fandom has no problem with it is kinda disturbing. Also some fanon solangelo contents are ableist as well and it is partly RR's fault;

- The fandom basically wrote and characterized Will Solace's character. Neither Riordan or Mark Oshiro give a fuck about him, and problably that's NOT gonna improve in the Tsats sequel;

- Accusing people who don't like solangelo and/or Tsats of homophobia is like the dumbest take ever;

- RR's representation characters are a concentration of stereotypes;

- It would have been better if Piper had her self-discovering - queer storyline from the beginning of HoO. It would have made her more interesting and relatable;

- Even more, it would have been more interesting if Piper had her queer-reveal storyline in HoO THANKS to her not-so-straight chemistry with Annabeth;

- Making Nico a overly morally correct/morally "pure" character makes him less interesting;

- CJ >>> CHB;

- Nico should be a rough demigod;

- It is heavily implied that the majority of CHB STILL doesn't like Nico and they only "tolerate" him because they like Will;

- Bisexual Jason is better and makes more sense than bisexual Percy. Jason's arc is basically a metaphor of bisexuality;

- It makes me sad how RR basically throw away every other Nico's beautiful relationships (with Jason, Reyna, Hazel, even Percy..) in favor of solangelo. Nico WAS a complex and developed character, now he's kinda just "the gay one";

- With his latest works RR is ruining his own franchise;

- PJo>>>>>>MG>>>ToA>>HoO;

[jadeazora]

I dunno if this is an unpopular opinion or not, but I hope they never bring Ash back. At least for the main anime, there's still the AU Ash in the movies they could use if they ever bring those back. I wouldn't mind that.

Generally, because he's world champion now, I feel that it could be boring if he just won all the time, or if he lost to somebody, you'd hear all these fan complaints like, "There's no way so-or-so is stronger than Leon!" or whatever. And even if they use the AU Ash to get around this, we might get complaints it's not the Ash. (At best, I think Ash would be more in a supporting/mentor role in some other character's journey rather than being the main character.)

This isn't coming from a place of dislike or anything, I started watching the anime when it first came to the US, and he was my introduction to anime, to a series I still love decades later. I've been an on-and-off viewer before I started this blog, but I wouldn't have continued watching if I disliked him.

It's mostly that other Pokemon media have been allowed to change main characters over the years, and it was high time for the anime to as well. I appreciate the variety of goals and story structure, rather than how formulaic the series had become with Ash at points. (SM and Journeys did shake things up a bit more tho.) Horizons has been a blast, and I like the lead characters (it was hype having a girl protagonist!) and overarching mystery has given me a lot of ideas for theories.

It's also nice not knowing to some degree how things will end up. (Like, with Ash, there was always some kind of League to go thru at the end, but that isn't Liko's goal. I imagine the end of the series will revolve around the final battle with Gibeon, but there's a lot of other factors like how the six heroes, Terapagos, and Amethio and the other Explorers will play into it.)

I hope they keep changing casts and storylines in the future. Yeah, it's a bit sad saying goodbye to characters you are fond of, but it's nice to see more of the characters that make up the Pokemon World and seeing their stories unfold, especially if they take it like Liko's did and don't stick to a loose adaptation of the game's story.

[spork-supremacy]

probably not that unpopular of an opinion, but I really believe that the love triange in season 3 could have worked if it had something to say about the characters and had proper care and attention put into it. Like it could've actually been somewhat beneficial to getting to know them.

Cole probably wouldn't really have needed much in terms of character study, considering it feels like he was more a victim to an impending break up. Honestly I would be fine if his entire thing was just about him being petty towards Jay because it woud be mostly justified considering Jay immediately puts the blame on him for Nya's change of heart. However, it could also focus on someone wanting Cole for himself, no matter who it was that took interest because, hear me out, while his Dad did love him, he never felt he could really be loved for himself growing up (especially after his mother's death) Because he was always hiding who he was and what he wanted. And now someone has taken an interest in him and who is he to pass up on the feeling of being truely accepted?

For Nya it could touch on her wanting to try new things as she finds her identity, even if that means wanting to try being with different people. Maybe instead of just blindly following the machine it could help her realise that she should consider other options. She is the type of person that needs to be absolutely sure she is making the right descision when it comes to who she wants to be with for life, so in order to do so she needs to branch out beyond the first boy she dated. Then she is no longer the bitch, or the helpless fool that came between a good friendship for no reason other than a machine said so. Instead just a girl trying to figure out if her current relationship was right for her in the first place. Sure Jay made her laugh, but there has to be more to a good partner than that, and how can she grow if she doesn't learn outside of what she knew?

Jay would definetly go into his boundary issues when he was in a relationship probably with some proper build up to better justify Nya wantig a break from him, the extreme jealousy that he displays to an unhealthily over the top degree, the insecurities and probably abandoment issues that I don't know the origin of...

wait, I feel like this one has been done already, just in a not so great way...

*scratches head* I can't seem to quite put my finger on it...

Hehe... all jokes aside...

For the love of all that is sacred someone please direct me towards something someone else has doen that does a deep dive into Jay's unhealthiness in relationships despite how much he really just wants to do it right.

Also by all means though, if anyone wants my own very long "Jay when he's in a relationship." analysis and properly expand on the points I made here...

[blasphemousclaw]

thank you for being so normal about the hornsent 🙏 Thank you cause jesus christ. anyways for the ask ermm The hornsent npc melina or messmer

you’re welcome I just got so attached to the hornsent while playing the dlc! after watching Belurat burn in the story trailer, going into the ruined city in the game and seeing all the graves and mourning spirits really affected me, and I’m honestly shocked that such a huge portion of the fanbase didn’t feel the same way. also they are literally so cool like look at their art and architecture. their armor sets. their divine beast dancing lion. if people can’t enjoy that because they’re “evil” well I have great news. they are not real

anyway here’s capital H Hornsent my best friend Hornsent

• favorite thing about them

how his quest ends with him attacking us no matter what we do. I know I know! it’s so frustrating that we can’t convince him we’re on his side! but the fact that he tries so hard to push us away just makes me love him more! he refuses our second offering of scorpion stew because he isn’t here to make friends, he’s here to win he’s given his life for his revenge... his line “I wish not to friendship kindle” drives me crazy because we have this moment of human connection with him, which he acknowledges, but he can’t let himself lose sight of his purpose! admit it Hornsent. you like me

also his character design and voice acting are fantastic

• least favorite thing about them

I already like how his character is handled but I think it would be even stronger if he or someone else dropped a few more details about life in Belurat before the crusade. he enacts his revenge not just in the name of his murdered family but his entire culture, and it would be nice to learn a few more hornsent cultural details through him!

• favorite line

“What’s this? Do you think me in need of alms? Ah… but this dish. Tis fare o’ the tower. I remember fondly this kin-clad scent. …Brings back memories I’d all but forgot. This, by my troth, is but a dismal copy. Indeed, I think it rather plain to see… things once broken can never be the same.”

I love the scorpion stew interaction so much! “things once broken can never be the same” hits so hard after exploring Belurat and seeing the city’s destruction, and pairing this dialogue with the scorpion stew description is even more tragic: “Traditional meal of the hornsent. Once made with love by a certain elderly woman for the family table.”

• brOTP ОТР whatever this is

Hornsent and Tarnished. what if I could fix him

• nОТР

I don’t think about this at all

• random headcanon

the marks on his face are burn scars from the fires… I think he had hair but it mostly burned off. maybe I’ll draw what I think his face looked like without the limitations of the npc character model sometime

• unpopular opinion

I don’t think he was a greater potentate! I think it’s strongly implied that he lived in Belurat before the crusade, not Bonny Village. I think he sought out the potentates’ caterpillar mask because it’s used to enhance focus and banish feelings of doubt in one’s purpose, which makes perfect sense for his revenge quest

• song i associate with them

once again please leave any suggestions in the replies/tags!!

• favorite picture of them

not to boost my own content but this was hysterical

[slitheringghost]

What's your unpopular opinion on canon!Harry? I find it interesting how he's a weirdly polarizing character, to the point that he's more often than not OOC in fic.

I think the take that the series doesn’t address Harry’s trauma is deeply bizarre? The text and Harry's POV even explicitly calls it neglect and abuse in DH! This whole series is about abuse. The literal main villain’s central role is as an abuser and being a vehicle to explore abuse (political ideology being entirely secondary). Just because Harry and others don’t have like, an explicit conversation about it doesn’t mean it’s unaddressed. Of course, it doesn’t do everything well there (i.e. justifying Dumbledore keeping him with the Dursleys), but Harry from the start was written as an abuse victim and the series doesn’t shy away from that.

I’ve seen interesting takes that the Dursleys written as they are is more about genre conventions and less about them being deliberately written as abusers, but personally I disagree, I think mostly everything in this series regarding its treatment of abuse is deliberate.

The other unpopular opinion is that "Harry is an unrealistic abuse and trauma victim compared to Snape and Tom Riddle" is a terrible take lmao. (This is generally followed by “Harry made friends!” when Snape and Tom also made friends, fandom just ignores this fact.)

You can say some of the factors are unrealistic - him gaining sudden wealth, basically gaining a nine person family with the Weasleys, etc.

Just because Harry’s specific circumstances weren’t the kind that would lead specifically to radicalization doesn’t mean he’s an unrealistic victim lol. He had benefits that Tom and Snape didn't, but he also experienced much more extreme trauma at Hogwarts than either Tom or Snape did. And we pretty clearly see him show the effects of that, including the not so pretty ones - him losing his temper at Ron and Hermione, his darkness with strangling Mundungus, etc. It is not more realistic for an abuse victim to become a fascist terrorist and/or a cult leader.

[essektheylyss]

for the ask game: 🧡🖤💚

🧡: What is a popular (serious) theory you disagree with?

Until I see definitive proof that Ludinus is in fact as old as he wants people to believe he is, I will not believe it. I don't even really have an opinion on how old he is; I just don't think he's as old as he tries to suggest. And lest it be said that I am playing favorites, the thing about Ludinus is that he talks the way Essek talks in 91—and there are a lot of things Essek says at that dinner that I take with a good heaping of salt. It's this sense that they're talking around things that they would rather people not question; they're both very skilled at talking around things in a way where they aren't outright lying, but they'd rather you not think too hard about it because there's shit they're not saying. To be clear I also won't be mad if there does turn out to be some evidence in canon that he is that old, but thus far, there is nothing definitive, and I do not take the word of unreliable NPCs at face value.

🖤: Which character is not as morally good as everyone else seems to think?

I don't think this is really an unpopular opinion at this point, but Jester. Nice =/= good. I don't think she's evil, by any means! But her morality is a lot more complex than it's given credit for and I think it's one of the things that is most interesting about her. I'd actually consider her largely amoral; it's just not really an axis of consideration that she worries about. She doesn't want people to hurt her or her friends and she doesn't want something to destroy the world, but otherwise she doesn't really care much about what someone's morality is. "Just don't be evil to me" is an incredible sentiment for a reason. She cares more that Essek said they were his friends than the fact that he's the traitor they've been looking for. Ludinus is so insignificant to her despite his literally world-spanning evil plots that she has basically forgotten him six years later, even though two members of her friend group have spent the last six years trying to pin him down. Jester is hilariously amoral and I love that for her.

💚: What does everyone else get wrong about your favorite character?

[cracks knuckles] OKAY, this is where I've got receipts, because hooo boy do I have an opinion and I will be proving it.

Essek does not have an opinion on the Prime Deities. He does not really have much of an opinion on religion. He actually does not by the end of the campaign have any real issue with the Luxon, and frankly he primarily expressed issue with the Dynasty's worship because, until he got to Aeor, he wasn't certain that the Luxon was a real entity at all—which he contrasts against the Prime Deities, in fact!—and he seems to believe there is compelling evidence in Aeor that categorically disproves his hypothesis that the beacons are simply constructed Age of Arcanum devices.

Originally he is mostly concerned that the Luxon religion is used as a "crutch" which is "distracting them from what other good things they could do with the time and focus". He does specify that any religion can be used as such, but he only remarks upon the one he knows. His theory about the beacons, as of episode 91, is that they may be "artifacts designed in the Age of Arcanum that have been misread" that could be put to even further use.

He also does parrot the Dynasty party line in their first meeting about the Luxon being "the basis of how we've been able to free ourselves from the binds of the lineage the Betrayer Gods left for us", and while I do not take him at face value here (see the above commentary about unreliable NPCs), I doubt the truth of this statement is lost on him, considering his familial connections to Bazzoxan, which I can only imagine would not exactly endear one to the Betrayers, though this is only conjecture. If we do care to take him at his word here, it's not unreasonable, since he obviously has a lot more interest in the power offered by the beacons than anything else.

With all that being said, his tune on the Luxon itself has at least changed by the time they get to Aeor. He discusses iconography found in Aeor and when prompted by the Nein about whether the beacons were created by mortals, says, "I do not believe that they are made by anyone but the Luxon. They are of the Luxon. But they've been around since the Luxon's been in Exandria, which is the beginning."

So we started with him largely apathetic to religion, uncertain if this god was real, and by the time we circle back to him, he has now sided fairly definitively with the fact that the Luxon is an entity that has been around since at least the Founding. (For those keeping track at home, this is longer than Predathos has been around. In the Dynasty's creation myth, it may also have been around before the Prime Deities arrived, which is technically not incompatible with the creation myth of Exandria at large, but I digress.) Like most of Exandria, and as is perfectly reasonable for both his culture and his region, he probably doesn't have any love for the Betrayer Gods, but doesn't express much opinion if any on the Prime Deities. He has no time for religion, but frankly, he doesn't have time for much except for his own research, so it's hard to really ascribe any noted contempt to that.

Like, look, I've written plenty of religious trauma Essek fic, and I don't doubt that that element of it exists, but overall, in terms of canonical statements, it's pretty tame.

With that being said, I do want to fast forward a bit to draw attention to something else. Because I actually do think he ends the campaign with some measure of respect for, at the very least, the Wildmother.

In 140 after the Raise Dead fails, he talks briefly with Fjord about the unfairness of it. Fjord passively directs him to "if you were to ask my wise friend Caduceus..." Immediately after this exchange, Essek challenges Caleb to not accept defeat, and admits he wishes there was more that he or any of them could do, but concedes that, "Unfortunately, this type of magic is beyond my purview."

Immediately after this exchange, Caduceus asks for divine intervention.

Of course, he then spends several weeks gardening in a temple to the Wildmother, and seems to find some genuine clarity and perspective there, but I think this alone is enough to argue that, for a person as driven by empirical evidence as Essek, this sequence of events in 140 would be plenty to earn a wizard's respect.

So my formal belief is that Essek is not in fact anti-god or anti-religion, let alone against the Prime Deities. My opinion is that it's very easy to imagine him on his post-campaign travels leaving a small offering at any shrine of Melora he might pass, not out of actual worship but as a sign of respect.

[these-posts-arent-real]

(masterpost link)

Aaand we have returned to the madness on a larger scale! What are these cats up to...

#sighh #i know i've been away from dash sim posting for a while #was dealing with my last few days of school #but #that is Over Now #i can return to fulfilling everyone's need for Warrior Cats But Tumblr

57 notes

🐦 s3afow1s--sc0wl Follow

PLEASE stop talking about the most recent TTDV slates without spoilers, it hasn't made its rounds to ShadowClan yet and I don't want to know what's going to happen before I read it!!!!

#ttdv discussion #ttdv:rp #through the desert vast #ttdv: rattlesnake path #ttdv #through the desert vast: rattlesnake path #especially since i heard the newest slates have seafowl in them a lot #he's my specialest guy...

9 notes

🔁 🛤 carnation-stem-02 reblogged

🍲 ex-thundrclan-kipper Follow

I think the worst thing about no longer being a Clan cat is that a lot of the time I have no idea what y'all over there are talking about. What is TTDV?

🦁 lionsight-x3 Follow

TTDV stands for Through the Desert Vast. It's a new slate series everyone's going bee-brained over... I haven't read it yet because I prefer for a series to be finished before reading, but I've heard good things. Queer rep within the first couple chapters of the first slate-set, a non-traditional setting and cast (a rogue group living in the desert), and complex characters... needless to say I'm excited for when it finishes and I can read it!

#it's been on my to-read list for a while #maybe this is a sign #it seems pretty cool #ttdv

2,070 notes

🔁 🐦 s3afow1s--sc0wl reblogged

⛰️ fc-rockpaint Follow

In honor of Through the Desert Vast becoming popular, I've decided to make a rock-dye project on all of the main characters. Today's character is... Seafowl!

Unfortunately I don't have the right paints to portray him accurately (I haven't been able to find any white herbs for his patches, but I'm still on the lookout!) but this is mostly accurate to how he is described in the slates.

🌠 nightshade-tast3s-yummy Follow

Pssst... @s3afow1s--sc0wl

#eeeek! seafowl! #i looove him so much... my precious boy... #art #ttdv #ttdv seafowl #thanks for the tag!

162 notes

🔁 🌻 l1llyst3m reblogged

🌻 l1llyst3m Follow

Aahhhh I've finally gotten into TTDV and... NOBODY was gonna tellme that one of the characters is heavily implied to be transfem? Nobody thought I'd find this interesting????

🌻 l1llyst3m Follow

SCRATCH THAT. IT'S CANON. PIT VIPER IS CANONICALLY TRANS.

🐚 hermitcrabfriend Follow

I had wondered if you were talking about Pit Viper when I saw this post a cople days ago! Apparently so ^w^ yeah, it's canon, gets confirmed in the second slate set.

🌻 l1llyst3m Follow

This makes me wonder. Why is everyone on this site talking about Seafowl saying he gives "egg vibes" when we have. An actual confirmed trans character. Right here.

Nothing against Seafowl but the only vibe he gives off to me is traumatized.

🏞 trouttail-prefers-bass Follow

He's your typical prettyboy cishet protagonist type and everyone is pissed off that he's a side character rather than ttdv's ✨️specialest boy✨️. So they're trying to make him special by claiming he gives off trans vibes when he clearly does not and is happy as a tom.

🌻 l1llyst3m Follow

#wait till op reads rattlesnake path

What do you mean by that-

#what do you MEAN by that— #im gonna need context #is this /pos or /neg #does something bad happen in rattlesnake path?? #help someone pls #through the desert vast #ttdv

103 notes

🔁 🥬 rxttencatmint reblogged

🥬 rxttencatmint

Im so fucking irritated... my mom wont let me read TTDV because it's "inApPrOpRiAtE." Which. Of course. Is because it has lgbtqia+ characters.

🥬 rxttencatmint

WONDEDFUL NEWS. MY MENTOR LET ME BORROW HIS COPY OF THE FIRST SET. AHHHHH!!!!! I GET TO READ IT!!

#YIPPEEEEE #òwó im so exCITED!!! #ive been wanting to read ttdv for a whileee #i love my mentor sm

5 notes

🪵 i-eat-moss Follow

My unpopular opinion (TTDV:RP SPOILERS INCOMING)

Keep reading

#ttdv:rp #ttdv #rattlesnake path spoilers #ttdv spoilers #ttdv:rp spoilers #nothing against pit viper!!! #i like her as a character #i just dont get why we got a whole book explaining her backstory

203 notes

🐚 hermitcrabfriend Follow

I LOOOOVE RATTLESNAKE PATH SO MUCH. IVE JUST GOTTEN TO READ IT AND IM SO EXCITED. OMG.

Not only is it a whole set dedicated to my favorite character !!! like a dream come true!!! It ALSO contains good intersex rep (Ball Python my beloved!!!). Over all just a FANTASTIC set in a fantastic series.

12 notes

🌱 dirtdigger-23 Follow

I'm... back?? I'M BACK ON CLANBLR!!!! WOOOHOOOOOOOOOOO

#i thought i'd never get back #stuck on Tumblr...

0 notes

🍽 the-post-maker

I hope y'all enjoyed this insight into what the cats do when they get fandom-y... and if you want to discuss TtDV further... well, there's a server for that ;) now back to your regular dash

[styxnix]

Unpopular opinion, but Francis is my favorite character. Everyone seems to say he was “just the gay character” but I feel like there is so much more to him. If he wasn’t around Richard wouldn’t know anything, because Francis was the only one who really told him stuff. They wouldn’t have a house in the country to go to. And sometimes I felt like he was a comic relief. Sometimes it felt like he was always there. Not to mention he was one of the only ones who really made a difference in the end, ultimately allowing Richard to see Camilla again. Also, without him how would we have gotten the classic line, “Cubitum Eamus?” and “Forgive me, for all the things I did but mostly for the ones that I did not.” And there’s so much more to him. So yeah, Francis for the win.

[very-straight-blog]

Unpopular opinion? I don't really care about the scenes they put in S1 (Dyana's rape, child pits) to make Aegon look bad. The main reason is that they wanted to paint Aegon as this sadistic monster who gets off on inflicting pain onto others with less power than him but it just doesn't work for me because we are always told about what he does but they never show him doing anything really. Whenever he's is on screen he's just some drunk sad boy who has mommy and daddy issues and want to be loved. If you told me Ramsay or Joffrey pushed someone down the stares and killed them, I would believe it because we are shown time and time again the way they are. If you told me that about Aegon, I would think it was Aemond who pushed the person off the stairs and that he's is blaming his older brother because Aemond IS actually shown being impulsive and reckless and no showing remorse, not Aegon.

Yes, exactly! We're told about Aegon's actions and that's all. Moreover, his character, the one that we see, doesn't correspond to them at all.

Aegon appears in front of us as an alcoholic with depression and mommy issues. He can be arrogant to some extent, he can annoy others and enjoy it, he's a hedonist - but the screenwriters don't show anything that would indicate his tendencies to cruelty and sadism. And we can look at the way Tom Glynn-Carney plays him - he creates a character who is mostly pathetic, but not dangerous. Plus, we literally have a scene where Aegon reacts to an act of violence, I wrote about it here.

And all this together gives us a strange and controversial image of a character. Obviously, the screenwriters didn't know what to do with Aegon and we ended up with this. Anyway, as a viewer, I just don't believe what I'm being told about Aegon.

[stellocchia]

Thinking of Secret Life SMP hybrid headcanons right now...

Grian would be a parrotlet. They're the smallest group of parrots and I feel like with how pathetic he's been this season he deserves to be just a little guy. He's still a pesky bird who, as season 6 proved, can definitely cause some mischief despite his reduced size, but he's a little guy anyway.

Jimmy is not a canary. Because, yes, he may have the canary curse, but that's just a fancy name for the curse, not necessarily his hybrid type. No, my man is a dog. He's a goddamn chihuahua. He's all bark and annoying but you take a single threatening step toward him and he shivers in fear.

On the topic of dogs, Martyn is a pomeranian. I'm specifically making him a small dog too because, despite wanting to act cool at the end of session 6, he is still very much the one who was first on yellow and red. My man is not big dog-coded.

Now, unpopular opinion, but Scar is a raccoon hybrid. He's a mischievous chaotic menace of a man. A little criminal ready to scam, commit arson, kill, and steal. He's a raccoon. He hasn't burrowed under anyone's house yet (that I remember at least) but that wouldn't be out of character either. Honestly, I'm appalled by the fact that this isn't a far more popular headcanon for him.

And, before I move on from dogs, Etho is also dog-coded. Specifically an Akbash (big white golden retriever-looking fuckers used for the protection of livestock). I just feel like the protectiveness and overall vibe fit him very well.

Finally, moving on from dogs. Cleo is obviously a zombie hybrid. There are no two ways around it. Though this does allow for my little headcanon that, having to learn on their own skin how to sew they became really good and really quick and they're the ones making all the new outfits for everyone else.

Gem meanwhile is specifically a sculk hybrid. Though I like to think that that came about when she opened the portal. She was a deer hybrid before (mostly because I like the subversion of expectations with a "prey" hybrid so to speak being arguably the most bloodthirsty person on the server) and then it spread like an infection. I figure by now her infected half straight-up looks something like Belos monster for from TOH:

Scott is something like a Reakirt’s Blue Butterfly. Both because the colors match him, and because he is kinda The Social Butterfly. My man is always out and about mingling with others. He's so friendly that he literally didn't struggle to pull off the "love you" challenge when everyone admitted that no one else would have been able to. It would be a waste not to make him some kind of butterfly at least.

Now, for Impulse I have something less reasoned, I just think the idea of him being an imp called Impulse is way too funny to resist. And he is way more of a mischievous one than I usually see people talk about. I've seen the phasmophobia stream where he killed everyone with the cursed items several times in a row just because he wanted to try them out. I know what he's capable of.

Meawhile his bestie Skizz is so capibara coded it's unreal. Like, don't get me wrong, he's plenty chaotic. But also you will never find anyone more lawful good in the Life Series than him. I've been thinking this since Love Island was founded. My man is the king of chilling with everyone. (Aside from Jimmy, rip Jimmy).

At the risk of being boring, I also like seeing Tango as a salamander hybrid. Exclusively because of the mythological connection between salamanders and fire. Also, the idea that every time he's flying (though it's funnier if it's also when he's simply jumping) he's nothing but a ball of fire with a lizard tail is very funny to me.

BigB is a hard one because I've only watched a couple of episodes from his POV so I'm not quite as familiar with the lore surrounding him as I am with the others. So I'm not sure. I want to say enderman because of his cryptid vibes this season, but he's not one of the characters with the biggest connection to the end. Those are mostly BDubs, Gem, and Lizzie, so I don't know. I'm open to suggestions.

Talking about BDubs, why are there no ender dragon hybrid headcanons for him around? I think it would be incredibly ironic if the dragon slayer was a dragon himself. Also, his house is under the Earth just like the End portals. Trust me, it makes so much sense. He's small but so full of righteous anger.

Pearl is no hybrid, she's literally just a witch. I've seen the WITCH animatic and that fundamentally changed my view of her forever. Before I would have said a moth hybrid of some kind because I do like moth Pearl, but I love that specific interpretation so much it's unreal. She is a witch with an army of hellhounds at her back and call.

Mumbo is a vampire because I've seen some art of vampire Mumbo at some point in time and it hasn't left my head since. Also, he's one of the players with the highest bloodlust every time he turns red. We're 2 for 2 on that with his appearances in the Life series. And it's usually also what leads to his demise. So I feel like that would be fitting for a vampire.

Meanwhile, my dearly beloved blorbo Joel is a honey-badger. This is a headcanon that is incredibly dear to me and I've never seen around but it's literally SO FITTING. The absolute crackhead energy, the lack of self-preservation, and the surprising sturdiness as time and time again he gets himself in impossible situations and still manages to survive until pretty much the end are all that exact honey-badger vibe. Like, just thinking of him summoning a hoard of zombies to fight off several infected and surviving for quite a while in those conditions just, really proves my point. Enough said.

Lizzie meanwhile is a very sad sopping wet cat. Just absolutely miserable. One of those cats who look like they're constantly grumpy. The frown has deepened ever since no one came to her party and she's still frowning in the void of death.