#all of the field goals

[californianedgeworth]

Baldur's Gate 3: bestie simulator

[xbomboi]

yapping about Briar. fellow Briar enjoyers assemble.

okay okay i don’t make it too obvious (or maybe i do, i wouldn’t know) but briar is my personal favorite character. i think about where the stories of all the characters would go and what their arcs would be a lot, but hers in particular is really important to me.

so i wanna talk about it.

first of all, she’s narcoleptic coded, right. we all know that. but her mom on the other hand reads to me, like, an alcoholic mother? and her dad is just willfully ignorant. either way, there’s a huge sense of neglect going on in that family. i mean go figure why briar would be the one doing most of the work raising her brothers. and of course she’s a party girl, because who’s gonna stop her? her parents? see yeah exactly.

so i don’t think it’s unreasonable to say she doesn’t have very strong parental figures in her life, at least not at home. but, and now you have to really hear me out about this one, i think baba yaga could take up a parental role in her life.

i know it isn’t much, but the seeds for her having at least a hint of a connection with baba yaga are there.

in the webisode “Stark Raven Mad”, baba yaga scolds briar for rambling about her party, and then as the commotion picks up she’s still exercising authority over briar in particular.

then there’s thronecoming, wherein, when briar is sulking at the dance, upon noticing the picture on the projector, she asks baba yaga for answers, who provides them.

and then skipping all the way to epic winter, after the girls become a little creeped out by her mannerisms and book it, briar is the one who makes sure to peak back in and give a parting remark.

so i think there’s potential there to be explored. her feeling neglected at home and then finding solace in another adult at school would be neat.

but the fact that it’s baba yaga is important, so just put a pin in that and we’ll circle back to it.

now, i think out of the core four, she was (at least at first) the hardest to actually pin-point what the future of her story could look like. with raven, i think it’s pretty clear her journey is just continuing to combat the prejudices of the world as she fights for change, apple is now pretty much on a path to figuring out her own future as ruler of a kingdom and what that’s going to entail, and maddie is the goofball that’s there to have fun and be supportive along the way.

then there’s briar. and, let me be clear, no, in my mind that girl is not sleeping for 100 years with where things are heading; in the main universe of the story, briar will be free of the sleeping beauty destiny.

but it’s like, if she’s not gonna sleep, what more is there to actually do with her? what direction COULD her life go in? because if she’s no longer fated to sleep 100 years of her life away, then she can’t just party like there’s no tomorrow anymore. she’d need to decide what she actually wants to do with her life.

and i think i have an idea.

i mentioned her narcoleptic coding at the start with intent to bring it up again. see, you might notice that a lot of the fairytale aspects of ever after high can be read as allegories for real-world problems. for example, hunter and ashlynn’s relationship is treated in their world the same way society may look at queer couples or biracial couples. or how raven’s mom being trapped in a mirror is their world equivalent to not paying child support.

with that kind of correlation in mind, i think treating briar’s curse as a condition could open up an interesting opportunity. i think, in their world, curses as a whole could be viewed as a separate branch of medical specialization, with briar spearheading this notion of thought.

we know briar is well-versed in chemythstry already. in the webisode “Briar’s Study Party” she makes note of the fact that she’s been studying forever-after, and she demonstrates enough knowledge in the subject to enthusiastically teach it to her friends, who all end up acing their tests on it as a result.

i think this is something she could potentially make a career out of. i think she could come to the conclusion that she wants to be able to help break curses for people everywhere, and could pursue learning to develop potions and elixirs to do so.

which could happen under baba yaga’s tutelage.

picture this: briar declares her newfound goal, to which baba yaga offers to teach briar all she knows in order to achieve what she’s set her sights on. briar—with an ounce of hesitance—accepts, and baba yaga officially takes her under her wing with the intent of mastering sorcery.

obviously, she wouldn’t lose who she is in this. she’s still gonna be an impulsive, adrenaline junkie who desperately needs a screentime limit on her mirrorphone. but in this process, she’d be rounded out by baba yaga and would in turn mature a bit from the experience. she’d get serious about life, but she wouldn’t let go of who she is at heart.

this could lead to her becoming the resourceful one in the main group. like on adventures, she’d be able to pull out a potion or whip something up (because i’m not going to let raven’s magic make her too o.p. she’s gotta have limitations) as a solution to problems. she could really have a role that proves useful and important to the story.

that’s my ideal pitch for where to take briar’s character.

[polychromatiica]

kinda rushed and also a little bit of a wip, au concept, very half baked, cuz tryna figure out how ray would fit into it is my hugest issue but lil outfit/role swap of emma and norman, mostly just wanted to draw tpn fanart again as its been a lil bit since i have

[rhineposting]

okay pause on phone people posting to do some Rhinedottir Posting ™

I think that while all of the Five Sinners are generally around the same level of unhingement and gray morality, Rhinedottir was just Like That even before taking a dunk in the Eldritch and Forbidden. I think it's kinda funny.

"That's Surtalogi, he basically invented lycanthropy and has a pet multidimensional narwhal that eats French people, that obelisk over there is Vedrfolnir, the single greatest visionary to kinda-live, capable of restoring sentience to the cursed, and the lady over there is Rhinedottir, a revolutionary alchemist and she, uh... Yeah these days she's mostly printing flying dismembered dogs. No idea why. She's not even taking care of them, or of any other thing she ever made for that matter. Yeah, she made a bunch of her clones and dumped most of them into a vat of acid. No idea why, something about them not being good enough. Oh yeah no, that was before our country was nuked. I don't know what's her deal and honestly at this point I'd keep it that way. Anyways, that guy over there is Rerir and he uhhhhhhh-"

[anaalnathrakhs]

love this part of my life where the things that are difficult but challenging and good for me are things i can stop and skip and halfass, but the things that are difficult and painful and pointless are the things i have to live with no matter what

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

examining your relationship with your art can be fun

but watch out

[reksink]

Two Pages of Interaction, Two Different Meanings Attacks for @flame-shadow and Sucre Amygdalum 💚

[feddy-34]

I need your thoughts on Joe’Marr’s fight

ahahaha no you dont

no but what??? was ja'marr thinking?????? if you look at the hit:

(excuse the quality i stole this from youtube)

no facemask but what ja'marr really wants is the hip drop call and you can see him already getting pissed right when he pops up

a hip drop tackle has two criteria: 1. the defender grabs the runner with both hands/arms 2. swivels or drops his lower body to weigh down the runner, landing on AND trapping the runner's legs at/below the knee

(you didn't see that press play nuh uh)

now mcduffie does use his weight to bring down ja'marr (which is how pretty much every tackle ever works btw) and he does land over ja'marr's legs but he doesn't trap them or bring his weight down onto the legs. he never even hits the ground. so it aint a hip drop tackle.

so ja'marr goes and yaps at the official for a bit which whatever happens all the time because you're allowed to have your say and joe drags him away BUT! then ja'marr goes back again!! and keeps yapping!!! so he gets the unsportsmanlike which pushed them from about 3rd and 7 to 3rd and 22 which they dont convert of course.

not only was it a completely unnecessary penalty to receive cuz for once the ref actually made the correct call, but ja'marr's still going at joey even when they're trying to huddle for the 3rd down. and even when he gets switched off he's throwing his helmet at the bench and acting pissed with the coaches. there's a lot of immaturity shown there. im pissed as hell when deebo pulls stuff like this and i know bengals fans feel the same way. shit wack.

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

I was looking into my local zoo and they say they're zaa accredited, that's not the same thing as aza, right? I was curious if zaa was reputable and whether an accreditation from them really means anything

I think a better question, unfortunately, is "does any accreditation mean anything?" Followed closely by "how can a member of the public tell what it means?"

AKA you've poked to one of my giant projects of indeterminate length that I might, hopefully, maybe, get enough of a conclusion on to start submitting for peer review and publication this year.

Now if you've been following the blog for a while, you're probably thinking wait! Accreditations require standards! So to know what an accreditation means, we could just go read what standards they hold facilities to, right?

...and the answer is yes, but, that won't give you the whole picture for a lot of reasons. Many standards are performance standards: they say what has to be achieved, but don't specify how it's done. That means whether the standard is met is up to a significant amount of interpretation. Maybe the standards are in flux/being updated, and you can't guarantee that what you can find publicly is what's currently being used. Most accrediting bodies allow facilities to petition for variances, and there's no information available about what facilities have ones, for what, and why. On top of that, there's always questions about enforcement, oversight, consistency, anonymous reporting options, and of course, the risk of nepotism and/or politics impacting how accrediting decisions are made.

Here's the thing that never gets talked about, but is really important to know: accreditation is branding. Accreditation groups are trade organizations - they are responsible for advocating for the success of the businesses that are members. Being part of specific "accreditations" is like being in a fancy club. Members get certain perks, non-members don't get those perks, there's in-groups and out-groups, except it's all playing out with regards to federal and state level regulation, legislation, government funding, etc. That's why it's so political - it isn't only about guaranteeing a facility's quality. It's about guaranteeing that they're good enough to be part of the club, and will function and act the way the people who run the club want.

So honestly, at this point? All I can confidently say at this point in time is that accreditation by any entity in the zoological or sanctuary world means that X facility aligns with the ethos/zeitgeist of the accrediting body such that they're willing to stake their brand to it. You can read up on accrediting body to get a sense of what that means - if you do, make sure you look at things like the website and comments they make to the media, because there's a lot of information about organization culture and ethos in that than in just the published standards.

Give me like, six months (I hope) and I'd be able to answer your question with a lot more specifics, but I'm still in the nitty-gritty of spreadsheets and I don't want to speak before my analysis is finished.

[north-wilkesboro-moonshine-cave]

another weekend, another job rejection!

[swallowtailed]

this year/semester/job took up so much of my time and energy that i kind of forgot how nice it is to just pick a direction and write. anyway for unrelated reasons does anybody want a hxh field ecology au featuring leorio as camp cook and kurapika as that grad student who was only ever glimpsed blazing through camp with tanks of pond water strapped to the back of his bike. it is five thousand words long

[cloud-makers-make-pollution]

One day when I have a partner and we’re adults we’re going on a stargazing date this is beautiful

[thedeadestmeme]

there is nothing better than having a favorite character that you actively hate. it’s the best feeling. i love watching/reading anything with them and having to pause bc i’m so overcome with rage. like bruh, i hate them so muchhhh. i want to kick their ass!! but look! it’s my favorite little guy. this precious fella is about to do the dumbest shit i’ve ever seen. i’ve never been more proud<333 but bruhhhh!! every word out of their mouth makes me want to toss them into orbit!! man, i want to adopt them so bad. that’s *literally* my son. i hate them so much. i want to give them the world.

[voidcat]

the contrast in which narumi and hoshina are going at on the field rn is so funny but also how they perceive one another is just............

[the-physicality]

20 years later, the mercury have not changed lmao

[bsaka7]

running this trail race in like three and a half weeks (two weeks after my marathon) and like ive looked at the course and it just does not look that serious to me unless the weather is poor (there's like 3mi of singletrack and 10mi of crushed gravel r2t, p2p net downhill) but they just sent us this email thats like "join this webinar! we're committed to safety to all runners. Also WEAR TRAIL SHOES"... i have trail runners which i honestly hadn't thought about wearing yet but now im like hm maybe i do need to check out this webinar just to make sure. new little things coming up all the time!