#anyway i don't really think the empire is entirely the problem if it is part of it

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

soooo is this man implying it's the empire that was the problem with uwu fodlan's border problems?

'cause i mean. that's basically what he just said.

[centrally-unplanned]

Since we're back on star wars discussion anyway, I remember you saying something like the prequels messing up by making the time between the fall of the republic and new hope too short. Now I'm interested how you'd solve it instead: Luke would have to be born a decent time after fall of the republic, is that what you mean? Completely new canvas basically?

Yes, Luke should be born a good stretch after the fall of the Republic, and it should be something of a new canvas. This, imo, is not something that needs a lot of world-building, instead a sort of narrative "courage" to kill some instinctive assumptions. In reality, just like the time between the wars is too short, the civil war itself is too short - not really the kind of thing that seems like it would have the "scope" to so radically change society, to make everyone in the Senate & Galaxy so accepting of and complicit in militant authoritarianism. The Clone Wars are only 3 years long! And in the prequels even that is honestly very "word of god" - you would never guess that based on what you see in the movies. Anakin having an entire Padawan-Master relationship with Ashoka in between the 2nd and 3rd films is kinda laughable, events seem much shorter.

It is very easy to envision a much longer conflict, an endless conflict, one that grinds on with new fronts, constantly justifying increasing levels of rising militancy and control (Palpatine himself would be secretly throwing key battles or funding insurgencies in order to prolong the conflict, for example). A whole new generation of military leaders would be raised in the system as true believers. The Rebellion would itself be Just Another Violent Episode until they blow up the Death Star and that whole sequence of events radically shifts the balance of power. This is what A New Hope looks like when you see it.

(You can ofc envision a different approach, one where the war is the length it is - or even one where the time is much less, where the Empire is brand new, a violent coup led by zealots radically pivoting from ideological purge to crushed insurgency. But then the polished, bureaucratic professionalism etc of A New Hope doesn't track)

The reason this isn't the case is that Luke needed to be born before Anakin fell. That is silly for two reasons. One...why? Darth Vader can't fuck? This is the kill-your-assumptions part; Darth Vader did not need to "start" broken and decayed in the suit. That can be a slow process - honestly, I think we all assumed it *was* a slow process in the original films, the Dark Side eating away at him over time. A mid-30' s scarred-but-fit (and hot, obvi) Darth Vader could absolutely have seduced an ambitious, grey-morality rising senatorial star in order to breed an "heir to the empire", who balks at the intensifying level of fascism at the last moment and flees with their children into the Rebellion. Or something, right? This just isn't a problem. Evil people have sex and families. I don't need to explain this.

The other way is that Anakin Skywalker didn't need to become Darth Vader at the launch of the empire. As Andor outlines, there is no one launch of the empire - the Senate is still powerful in the middle eras. Anakin could have been born later, seduced by Palpatine at a key moment in his own life. Or he could have fought the Empire for years, and had his hope chipped away, falling to the dark side as a grizzled veteran. There are a lot of options here.

Now the latter option radically changes the prequels - you can't line up "the fall of Anakin" with "the fall of the republic" and "the death of the Jedi" in one neat line. I don't care about that personally, but I get it, you wanna tell that story. The former option lets you still do that, Anakin can kill the Jedi, it just means he probably doesn't have a love story as his motivating B plot for the whole thing. Fortunately for us, that B plot sucked! Everyone hated that romance; it was coarse and rough, and narratively got everywhere, screwing up the prequels. Ditching it and focusing on Anakin's personal values, ambitions, and relationship with Obi-wan would have been way better. You could even keep Padme and have her just Be Hot And Evil and support Anakin's turn, and they have a kid later! My idea fucks, 10/10, no notes.

[owenthetokencishet]

I am getting really fucking tired of the discourse around current Canadian nationalism. Because I don't think you understand that EVERYTHING has changed.

This is going to be a rant.

Before Trump began threatening Canada, this last election was going to be a Conservative supermajority. Pierre Poilievre was going to take Canada and make us Daddy Donny's bestest little buddy because the Liberals were the party in power during COVID and the party in power during COVID has lost just about every election in every country in the world that's had one.

Then Trump said 51st state. And Poilievre lost the election he had been planning for since he became party leader. Pierre Poilievre was going to be the first step in bringing Trump-style fascism to Canada. And we just rejected him. It was close, worryingly close, but Canada said no.

Much of the modern Canadian far-right is funded by the United States. Hell half the grassroots donations raised by the Trucker Convoy came from Americans. The US had a hand in the 2025 election, making massive donations to Poilievre's Conservatives.

Now that the right-wing Canadian nationalists have to reject the US to not COMPLETELY destroy their minds with cognitive dissonance, they have to lose much of their power and influence.

Canada's current surge in nationalism is a REJECTION of Donald Trump and of American influence. Now that the people we were parroting all those christofascist talking points from are banging at our doors, their ideas are going to become (and already are) much harder to swallow.

We're not Weimar Germany, we're Ukraine circa 2021. Our nationalism right now is surging in defiance of a VERY REAL external threat.

"But Canada is bad!!! We-" Yes. Canada is a shitty country. We have our issues and things that we as canadians should be ashamed of.

Yes. Our country is built on the corpses of entire civilizations. Good luck finding a country that isn't. Yes, We need to improve living conditions in Indigenous communities. Yes, we need to properly investigate the MMIWG cases. Yes, we need to do more than just embarassingly bad land acknowledgements at the opening of every play.

But we can't do any of that shit while we're under an American boot.

"the settler colonies all deserve to die anyway so-" Okay if you're using that specific phrase "settler colonies" I'm automatically assuming you live either here or in the states. MAYBE Australia. All I can say in that case is Y'KNOW THAT'S *YOU* RIGHT? There goes your healthcare system. There goes your supply chain. There go your defenses against the Americans. You can't just wish the last 500 years away. Whether or not Canada *deserves* to exist doesn't fucking matter. It's there. And unless you've got enough guns, guillotines, and militants ready to storm parliament hill and kill every last cabinemt member, it's not going anywhere.

Canada exists whether you believe it should or not.

Does Canada have its problems? Absolutely. But you can still love something in spite of its flaws. Nationalism is not, at its core, fascistic. It is simply the belief that nation is a part of your identity, just like race, gender, and sexuality. And nation is not the same as state. Palestine is (currently) a nation without a state, as is the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

Looking at the history of nationalism and nationalist movements, "left-wing" and "right-wing" become kind of useless terms to describe the core concept. Black nationalism is historically seen as pretty left-wing and anticolonial but then you've got Marcus Garvey talking about collaborating with the KKK to deport Black people back to Africa in a plan that sounds awfully similar to Zionism. Asking "is Irish nationalism right-wing?" Is a good way to get an Irishman to beat the shit out of you. Indian nationalism used to be about forming a united front to get the British Empire out. Now it's about exterminating Sikhs and Muslims. GESTURES WILDLY AT ISRAEL AND PALESTINE.

Canada is not the greatest country in the world. But I DO like it here. I like winter. I like universal healthcare (such as it is THANKS DOUG) and legal weed. I love Algonquin Park. I listen to Rush and grew up on Mister Dressup. I ADORE the Stratford festival and PRAY to work in their prop shop someday. I love poutine and am currently eating a butter tart while covered head-to-toe in buffalo check plaid. I am PROUD that we consistently rank as one of the safest countries in the world for LGBT+ people. And I am proud of Operation Yellow Ribbon and to be going to the school that birthed a musical based on its events THAT WENT ALL THE WAY TO BROADWAY AND BACK.

This is my home. There are cracks in the drywall and skeletons in the closet but it's MY home. And I don't want some red-hat jackass paving it over.

Elbows up, people

[titanomancy]

A tale of two recommendations, continued below the break for those with time to kill and an ax to grind.

While I don't post much at all on the Insta, myself, I use it to keep abreast of what some of the luminaries in the hobby community are up to - and, sometimes, I've gotten some really good recs. The rest of the time, it's been algorithmic slop; brand accounts, cat videos and stupid little stick figures with poofy lips. You're a hip and media savvy audience, I'm sure you're familiar.

But with the changing of the seasons, it's gotten really bad and all I've been getting has been highly produced thotposting from low engagement wannabe influencers. By all means, girl, go get yours, but why does the algorithm feel that this is the kind of content I want to interact with? None of the people I follow, follow these accounts, and I don't engage with them at all, myself.

What's a single interest science fiction wargaming miniatures blog to do? The "not interested" button doesn't actually work, the same posts keep showing up no matter how hard you try to train the algorithm. Blocking undesired accounts will keep those specific accounts out of your feed, but you've got to navigate through a minimum of two screens to block someone and that doesn't actually affect your recommendations, anyway.

So I got to thinking, why is this my problem? It's their dumb website that's broken. And so the concept of an idea began to coalesce. These recommendations aren't relevant to my interests, and that's a problem. And what do we do when we see a problem on a website?

Now, there are safeguards against spamming reports. You can't send the same text twice, but if you've read along this far you can probably infer that I've got a lot of ways of saying, "this recommendation is not relevant to my interests," at my disposal. And it's not actually spam, anyway, since every single report was accompanied by an image of the irrelevant recommended post in question.

That being said, there is a secret, hidden limit for the number of reports you can make in a given time. I didn't care to evaluate it empirically, but when it stopped accepting reports I just waited an hour and got right at it again.

And, wouldn't you know it, within twenty-four hours, my recommendation feed was almost entirely, exclusively photos and reels of miniatures.

Not a thot in sight! There were, admittedly, a few gunpla posts, some traditional media art and the odd footie post but, for the most part, the kind of content I was being recommended strongly aligned with my interests. or was at worst tangential to my interests based on the kinds of accounts I follow.

See, I am one hundred percent convinced that Meta has an algorithm which organically recommends content based on the types of interactions you have on their platforms; the images you like, the posts you comment on, the people you follow and, by extension, the images that they like and the posts they comment on. That's what these recommendations represent.

Then there's the algorithm which recommends vapid, consumerist lifestyle envy to achieve some opaque social engineering objective.

And there is absolutely a switch to turn it off.

[sweetpleats]

ending thoughts on rewatching legend of korra (maybe i should go back and tag things? we'll see if i do)

god the metal clan is fucking annoying. every single one of them. except the ones that don't talk because i don't hear enough of them to be annoyed with them. i don't mean lin or toph i just mean suyin's family (including kuvira). actually opal's fine she's just not super well-written. okay i don't like suyin kuvira and bataar jr.

it's funny thinking about how this was maybe one of the first shows i watched and got really into, especially given how much a part of my life stories are. my dad introduced it to me as it was airing, and i was obsessed. i watched every episode as it aired on that nickelodeon website. i don't think it made me super nostalgic but it was kind of a funny glimpse into what i used to think about and be into

i might rewatch atla after this

wait i torrented this season like 27 hours ago and i've watched all of it. i have classes. sigh. yeah that sounds right

anyways my train of thought with atla is like. this is to be taken with a grain of salt because i haven't rewatched that in a long time. but despite whatever gripes i have with the neoliberalist politics of this show, i do think the writing matured a lot from something that was already really mature. atla is praised for its complex villain characters, mainly in the form of zuko and azula (with some regard for hama and jet), but azula is the only one of these i would consider to be a major antagonist through and through; zuko is in fact a good guy by the end of it. this isn't to say i don't admire the complexity of these characters because i do, but the big bad of atla is ozai, a villain who is just evil for little reason we see. this is not an entirely bad thing. but in tlok it's made really clear that the villains are all human, and their ideas all come from somewhere. this really took off with s3 and s4 with the red lotus and kuvira, but still with the first half of the series, amon is constantly using ostensibly good words like "equality" and is stated to probably actually really believe in what he was trying to do. unalaq is kind of a maniac, but korra agrees with him in the end and keeps the spirit portals open. it's kind of like growing up with the fanbase of atla and learning that the world is more complicated. one problem leads to another. the spirit portals being open leads to the red lotus freeing themselves, the red lotus taking down the earth monarchy leads to kuvira's empire. they definitely could have used that two-season contract to draw out the red lotus stuff, but they instead chose to show the significance of cause and effect. idk it's cool

watching korra get that brutalized made me mildly uncomfortable

i feel like there was a truly large amount of missed potential with a lot of things. asami's writing in the first two seasons or so is nowhere near the level it is after (or maybe i just hate seeing her with mako). it would have been cool if mako had any empathy for the people he was arresting because he came from the same background, or at least any reflection on this. bolin and asami should have gotten to be friends more. bolin should have retained more intelligence.

i don't think i really knew what was happening with korra's development when i watched this. god ten years ago? jesus christ i was ten when i watched this originally. fuck. anyways i appreciate getting to understand the depths of her arc, even if i really hate the "suffering breeds compassion" bit. see good damage monologue from bojack horseman

overall i don't think it was actually as bad as i remembered. there were a lot of moments that felt a bit unreal like riverdale dialogue where i was just like you people are not serious. i think the unavaatu stuff is still extremely ridiculous, and the stuff with amon was not nearly as nuanced or interesting as it could have been. but there's definitely worse out there, and s3 and 4 are imo fairly solid writingwise

maybe the high animation budget is tricking me into thinking the quality was better than it is. but i also lowkey don't think many cartoons from that time frame have come close to the level of complexity and skill of tlok. i think possibly infinity train. maaaaybe she-ra? she-ra is more boring lowkey, at least from what i recall. i think character writing has gotten more nuanced over the years as more people go to therapy and develop empathy for antagonists, at least is my guess. to be fair not all cartoons aspire to the same things as tlok. it's like avmj. it very obviously fails in some places but there's a lot attempted and on the whole i think it still does quite a few things well

def could have done better with how it talks about women though lol

i was groaning at all the stuff right before korra and asami walk into the spirit world and then they did the thing and i got chills. i remember watching this, i think before i actually knew fully what gay people were, and i remember getting this feeling that maybe something was going on between them. and then i figured out i was bi (i am not bi anymore but at the time i thought i was) and it meant the world to me to see one of my favorite characters of all time (korra) be bi. so

korra is still a very good character. yeah

i watched this one video analysis on korrasami explaining how they work together so well because they innately understand each other and god it opened my eyes to so much like this white guy had a vision. i can't say i'm one of those people who watched all of it and was like oh my god they're queer. but it's also like i've seen these guys write romantic relationships on purpose and without censor and i'm glad they had more restrictions for a change because i do prefer this to what they were doing before. it does feel more like a natural evolution, and maybe i didn't get it immediately, but it feels better when i think about it being a thing in comparison to things like kataang where i felt like it was just being thrown at me and and i was like sure i guess

it's also ultimately not a series about romantic love and i like that, while asami is clearly important to her, it doesn't take center stage because korra has all these bonds with other people and those are also super important. it's amazing what love stories people can't write when their ability to lean on amatonormativity is taken away

my overall feeling is that i feel like i watched a completely different show this time compared to what i watched eleven years ago because i'm a very different person now

[buckybarnesss]

This is sort of an out of left field question- but what are your thoughts on Peter and Talia being half or step siblings?

Obviously, they don’t look alike very much. And clearly genes are funky things and this is not damning evidence. But I think it’s a very personal hc to me bc I myself have a half brother who I love very much, but it does influence our interactions.

One thing I constantly think about is Peter being an unreliable narrator. And what we see of Laura from his pov is different than Scott and Stiles finding her body. Is he imagining she’s blond and looks more like him? Yeah sure this could just be casting inaccuracies. But it feels very personal lol.

Has Peter always felt a degree of distance with his family? Where did the idea of him being Talia’s left hand come from? Wouldnt he have been there in the alpha pack flash back if that was the case? Was he younger than Laura? This also brings to mind Papa Hale (who I like to imagine was a human part of the pack/another pack before him and Talia were in a relationship). Was Talia always a Hale? Or married in?

Anyway, I have many thoughts and questions. But I really appreciate your analysis and insight. Joining a fandom past its prime (affectionate) is sort of like being in the apocalypse where 80% of the fandom is dead, and finding a ‘survivor’ is a miracle. Anyway, if you feel like it, I would love your thoughts on it all :3

if laura hale is my roman empire than talia and peter's relationship is my holy roman empire.

@dear-massacre and i talk about this quite frequently. it's a problem fam.

i do have a talia hale and peter hale and the hale family feels tags.

we don't really have any information other than some crumbs jeff has thrown us within canon.

in my opinion talia is the hale. there's no other option put forth. derek's father is such a non-entity that there's zero mention of him. the hales are clearly an old family of werewolves and were part of the very founding of beacon hills itself likely connected to the nemeton.

not to mention, season 3 has a lot to do with derek learning from and accepting talia's legacy and the legacy of the hale family. it also directly contrasts the argents. the argents pay lip service to being matriarchal but we know gerard has been calling the shots for decades whereas it seems as though the hales actually were.

so when you get down to it you can pretty much headcanon anything you want for how the exact specifics of how talia and peter are related but what we do know is talia was the older sibling and peter the younger.

peter doesn't actually talk about talia very much if at all. however, his monolog in monstrous is quite illuminating on peter's headspace while he was in a coma and pre-resurrection.

i predicted this. i told-i told talia this was going to happen... something like this was going to happen... i said that they were gonna come for us... " the argents, they're gonna come for us. they're gonna burn us to the ground-- burn us to the ground." did she listen? of course not! did anyone listen? they listened to her-- yes!-- say that everything was going to be fine. that we were all perfectly safe...perfectly safe... but she made us weak! she made us weak. and what happens to the weakest in the herd? they get picked off by the predators! we used to be the apex predators, until talia turned us into sheep.

with that said i do have my own ideas on their relationship given what we know. visionary is the episode that does the heavy lifting in the entire goddamn show in regards to this.

the age inconsistency comes from bringing back the younger actor from season 2 to play peter in visionary. it makes peter appear closer to derek's age than he actually is. i think it's almost part of peter's manipulations. it's his attempt to manipulate the audience as well just like he did lydia.

there's just simply no way talia hale didn't know about peter's everything. she was not only his older sister but she was his alpha. i think peter and talia may have been more similar than people want to believe.

peter is a lot of things. many of them contradictory. he loved his sister and clearly mourned her but that doesn't mean he didn't resent her just a little. he did still after all go with derek to retrieve her claws and i think there's something twisted up in him about how derek resembles her and begins to become more like her.

when you begin to sort of dig into what we know about the hale family the more one begins to question if talia was as benevolent as people assume she was. there's some seriously morally questionable things that occurred. talia did some shady things.

the real big one is that she coerced corrine into carrying her pregnancy with malia to term. the likely explanation is talia did this because she knew this would decrease corrine's power.

corrine is pretty explicit about this with what she says to malia:

you know, your real name isn't malia. you don't have a name. talia hale took you away from me before i could give you one.

and

corrine: i'm not going to stop, malia. i'm taking back what you stole from me. malia: i didn't steal anything. corrine: but you did. corrine: and I don't care if you're a willing participant or not. talia hale spent nine months trying to convince me of the miracle of childbirth. you know what it really felt like? a parasite. talia said it was a gift, that the coyote passes down part of her power to her daughter. she called it "beautiful." i call it "theft."

she also took peter's memories of malia's existence which considering peter's reaction doesn't seem like he had much say in. so in effect talia removed peter's agency.

she probably felt she had valid reason for doing these things. corrine was a threat and dangerous person but still it's really, really questionable. it still ended with malia's adoptive mother and sister being killed and malia going missing for years because corrine was vengeful over losing her power. talia was still alive when this happened.

of all people talia had to be aware of peter's -- you know -- everything and she probably held the leash. he wasn't a problem so long as she was the alpha and could control him.

talia also had to have been aware of and likely either approved of or encouraged him taking a mentor sort of role with derek. we see peter having a keen interest in derek in both visionary and the season 4 flashbacks.

like, who do we think ran off and told talia about what happened with derek and paige? who likely instructed peter on getting rid of paige's body and helping to cover up her death to protect derek and the family?

i actually fully believe she knew peter was skulking about the werewolf summit and may have even told him to do so.

talia is like the mona lisa smile of teen wolf. she's inscrutable but we get impressions about her and what she was like via the people that knew her. her children, her brother, her advisor and peers.

[prism-empurress]

holy shit i have a theory about my OC Lore and worldbuilding, hold still while I gather my brain cells. -----

So the existence of Clara, the oracle, implies something very very dark. and ironic. considering. well. my nearly-one-year straight obsession of ISAT. this character existed before I played ISAT, but she wasn't admittedly as fleshed out then. She's from a doomed timeline. Spoiler warning though, just in case.

She's the fusion of Lady Greenfyre and Empurress, during a spell going very, very wrong. Said spell caused their souls to fuse together entirely. Supposedly, it's the same spell as the really forbidden one, that resulted in her to be thrown backwards in time.

Any mention of time magic is strictly forbidden in the Prism Empire, as well as the surface world below. Not that it stopped anybody craving that forbidden knowledge. But, you know, you get desperate for solutions to a huge problem...

but in nearly all timelines, PegaKitty becomes Empurress! --- Hi I'm from the future after being high off my ass, let's try continuing this post. So Empurress, she's an important character. One might even say the most important. Because of her being the one forming the Prism Empire in the first place, and her strong tie to the fate of Eden. She's just one of the strong ties, though, but usually, if she or her younger self dies...it's game over. The thing is...you need all three reincarnated ancient gods, ascended to godhood or not but ALIVE nontheless, to bring Eden'a back. Otherwise it's just not possible! You've softlocked the game! All three of them, Greenfyre, PegaKitty/Empurress, and Nicholas...are all the MOST like the lost goddess, the holy mother. There's the seven fates in total, but those three NEED to be alive and STAY alive in order to bring Eden'a back to life, from the void she resides in as a half-concept.

Nic dies a lot in most timelines, Greenfyre's ascension is 50/50, but PegaKitty's ascension into Empurress is almost always guranteed. Well here's a secret. In a really bad end of the game, the kind where you DON'T get a game+ save... I'm actually gonna write this after I finish this post. Empurress, dying from horrific wounds, blood coming out of her mouth, smiles anyway and cradles the player's hand in her own.

Her last words are "Everything will be okay"

then time rewinds, to the very start of the game. That time rewinding? That's Empurress using one final spell, as a last resort, to save everybody.

This isn't the first depiction of her doing that; in one of my drabbles here in the my writing tag, Empurress begs tearily to the Heart of the Empire to rewind time to before calamity strikes. In another depiction, in...I think last year's attempt at making a comic page? PegaKitty mentions having weird dreams, one involving someone looking like her mom, seen tearily saying "PLEASE!!" at something. So Empurress doing forbidden time magic, this won't be the last time it'll be mentioned, either.

Time magic is frowned upon for obvious reasons, namely being altering the course of time itself entirely... it's dangerous stuff, requires a lot of magic, and often a heavy sacrifice.

This isn't the first time this was used as an overarching story plot either, back in...a certain minecraft server, I was roleplaying as a magical girl that came from the distant future. Didn't get to the magical girl part sadly, but it was planned. Anyway, let's focus back on Clara! The character mentioned at the very beginning. The existence of Clara...heavily implies that Empurress is directly responsible for time rewinding in multiple timelines and AUs.

Has Empurress been the real villain the whole time...?

[rouxenne]

You guys will never guess who's just remembered that she can post inane ramblings about her AU in addition to the more fancy big posts.

Anyways, inane ramblings under the cut.

WELL HELLO THERE WELCOME TO MY LAIR OF INSANITY, YOU CONSENTED TO BE HERE

so I wish I could've been working more on this au while off on spring break but the weather has been giving me the worst brain fog. Honest to goodness I've felt like I had yellow sponge cake (specifically that, for whatever reason) inside my head for the last few days. I had academic stuff to be doing. But here we are!

I have gotten a bit of stuff done, though none of it's terribly set in stone yet, and I want to ramble about it so that I can work it out a bit more and get it somewhere better.

One of the main things I've been looking at is Gem's team. I don't think there's been anything said on her so far, but to be brief about it she's a competitive battler in Unova that ends up taking on the role of Rival to Pearl over the course of the story. I know a couple pokemon that I want on her team, but for the most part it's been absolutely fighting me.

Gem has such set themes for all her series which makes it pretty easy to translate that into what her pokemon may be like in the au. The problem comes in with the fact that these themes do not fit Unova. Almost at all. Which sucks because I'm trying to make sure teams consist of pokemon that the character would encounter naturally, unless they have a reason to be trading outside the region. What Unovan pokemon do work are almost entirely already given to different characters as well, and I'm trying to avoid doubling-up on giving them pokemon unless there's a reason to.

So far I know that she should have a dog pokemon (at the moment I'm thinking Manectric) to reference her irl dog. I'll note here really quick that I'm not going to be giving every character that owns pets irl a correlation in their teams; there's not enough cat/dog pokemon that work, and I'm just not familiar enough with the cc's. At the moment, I think the only people with cc pet correlations are Pearl, Gem, Impulse, and Scar? Anyways moving on, Gem absolutely has to have a Sawsbuck as reference to the deer theme. It's just gotta happen.

The other main themes I know of for her are the aberrant aquatic stuff going on in hc s10 (Dredge is such a good game), the crystal mage stuff going on in Empires s1, and the sun butterfly princess thing going on in Empires s2. And those are... a bit difficult to assign anything for. I've decided that Gorebyss might be good since it fits both the aberrant aquatic theme and Gem's reputation as being both cutesy and absolutely lethal, so I'll just have to decide where it came from. Maybe the one city with a water type gym from bw2? And the rest are... Gods I dunno. The best crystalline pokemon I can think of are Carbink and Diancie, but those... don't really work? I'm trying to avoid mythicals and legendaries, and even though I'm pretty much using anime logic for how pokemon battling works (not as much of a fight between numbers as the actual games are), Carbink is just way too weak for me to think that a competitive battler would keep one on her team. Then for the Empires s2 theme... Honestly I've been focusing on the sun side of it, which has absolutely trash choices- Sunflora (garbage), Solgaleo (legendary), Heliolisk (...maybe?), Solrock (more garbage). But I haven't honestly given much thought to the butterfly or princess aspect of it, which I'll have to do now. Honestly I currently also have Unfezant and Ursaring on Gem's team, just out of vibes. I do kind of like the idea of her being something of a normal-type specialist, for whatever reason, but I really don't think that'll pan out at all. Actually, looking at my planning document, I also started thinking of Cinccino? Gem's said that her pvp style is basically just hitting people many times quickly rather than going for crits, so Cinccino's focus on multi-hit attacks does actually work for that.

Aaanywho, that's most of my thoughts on Gem's team at the moment. I haven't been too stuck on it, since there's a load of other stuff to be working on too, thankfully. I've begun writing a little bit of prose to figure out the fuller timeline of the au, which has been super fun, and I've also been watching more of Etho's videos to flesh his team out a bit better. I've been keeping up with his hc s10 and the episodes of his let's play since I started watching him last September, so I've begun watching backwards through his LP and watched bits and pieces of his older series. It's helped to flesh him out a little bit- I'm thinking that I may go with the idea of him being an old Faller, where Pause and Beef were his friends/family from his home dimension- but it's really not helped to change anything about his team. Etho doesn't really have theming or much rp like the others do, he's just very consistently himself in everything he does. Which is actually super admirable! Just not useful for me. The only things I've really considered changing are adding a pokemon with Steadfast (Gallade, maybe?) or one that references being around for a long time. Maybe he should have an Ultra Beast considering he may now be a Faller, but I don't think that'll work out. In addition to just really not fitting the themes of the au, no Ultra Beasts really suit him and I'm really not inclined to make fakemon for this. Even the inclusion of UB Watcher was something that I just wanted as a quick reference in the main story post without any serious usage. Though, if anyone's curious, I have decided that it'd probably be some combination of psychic/flying/ice-types and look like a floating swarm of eyes that resemble feathers and often idle in the form of a hooded figure.

So... yeah. I think that's just about everything I've got to say about this, right now. It'll have to be, since I've now only got about half an hour to pack my stuff before spending the rest of my day driving back to university. Not excited to deal with the essays I was meant to be doing over break and then just absolutely didn't.

[redpenship]

I was wondering from in your Buzzsaw Dilemma fanfic, if Sonic may have developed lasting insecurities specifically over steadily becoming more powerless to stop Eggman. Sure the Empire became a lot less bad, but it seemed from Sonics pov that just kinda happened. Meanwhile the consequences became too dangerous for him to destroy most of Eggmans structure and badniks. Even if he'd hide it I think that powerlessness could greatly bother him.

Though i've just realized that you'll probably have more to show about how Sonic handled everything in the sequel fic you're planning. So I'm not sure how much you'd wanna reveal about your ideas here.

This is definitely going to be part of Sonic's story in the sequel, but none of it will be surprising to the reader anyways so I don't mind talking about it. If anything, I would literally spoil the entire sequel if you asked me to, I don't actually care very much haha.

[long post ahead]

I've always kind of believed that Sonic has a somewhat worse time than Tails during the events of the fic, particularly in the sense that although Tails' situation sucks absolute ass, he's at least in the loop about what's really going on. Sonic's perspective is rather bleak: a kid he's growing fond of suddenly dies, and then a couple of weeks later he loses any ability to fight back against Eggman. He has a small victory on Angel Island, but this is ultimately short-lived.

Chapters 4-6 are important for his character, since he really just experiences loss after loss with no ability to stop it. His attempt to hide the Chaos Emeralds results in Amy losing her home, and any guilt he feels over this is only made worse by Eggman winning the fight for the emeralds in the end anyways. Sonic isn't stupid--at this point, he's well aware that he was tricked into collecting the emeralds for Eggman. However, he definitely feels kind of stupid, and especially frustrated with himself for basically ruining Amy's life (even if it wasn't really his fault).

Shortly after, he tags along with Amy and Knuckles on their base raids, but the exploding Badniks make him effectively useless and all he can really do it support the others during their fights. This makes Sonic feel really bad for a few reasons: 1) He can't do anything. 2) The way he sees it, Amy and Knuckles were both kind of dragged into this because of him and it isn't fair that they have to do all the heavy-hitting for him. 3) He is now aware that Eggman is a bit "smarter" so to speak, but doesn't know what he's planning and isn't confident enough in himself to start guessing. The base raids are a band-aid solution to what he knows will be a much bigger problem down the line.

These three points kind of compound into more guilt and frustration when Eggman traps Knuckles on Angel Island. Sonic is pretty certain that Eggman is lying about the bombs, but remains unable to convince Knuckles, who can very easily point to the exploding badniks as proof that Eggman isn't above making this kind of play. Sonic continues to largely blame himself here, as he believes that if he could still defeat badniks, Eggman never would have become successful enough to control someone as he did Knuckles.

Chapter six onwards is when the broader world dynamics come into play. Sonic is very aware of the planet's recent history--the flashback in chapter 2 isn't Sonic giving Tails a nickname, but rather a real "Mobian" name since Miles is English--and knows what it would mean to have Eggman take over the east pacific islands. It's worth noting that Vanilla's story about the fire only happened around seven years before Sonic was born, so you are free to consider the implications of what it means for Sonic to have grown up as parentless kid on South (or Christmas) Island.

After Eggman takes over the islands, and especially after the human states take over the other Mobian territories, is the point where I think he would feel the most powerless. His inability to stop Eggman caused a domino effect leading to the complete domination of his planet. Both Sonic and Tails feel responsible for letting this happen, as though they were both mutually enabling the empire and other states.

The reveal of Alhazen's identity, while a relief to Sonic, also only serves to reaffirm all his insecurity about being the cause of the empire's success. Not only was he powerless to stop everything going on, but he now knows that Tails had been caught in the chemical factory because Sonic hadn't been keeping a close enough eye on him. Tails might think "oh, I was the gasoline, I enabled Eggman and served as the key to the empire's success", but Sonic blames himself for Tails being in that position in the first place. The creation of Alhazen is a direct result of a single mistake: running ahead and forgetting to let the little kid behind him catch up.

Although Mobians in general kinda end up in a better place thanks to Tails' deterrence, the fact that he was incapable of doing anything to help during such a critical moment (well, "moment" meaning basically anything from chapter 4 onward) is going to stick with him probably for the rest of his life. Poor Sonic </3

(very long post haha. ty for your question!!!)

[dave2olkat]

Some plot ideas I have for Gold Pilot (The Davesolkat Time Loop Rebellion AU):

The MAGE ~ATH code, aka, the thing that causes the time loop, can send either someone's mind or a physical item to the next iteration. At the start of the fic, it's about the 21th Loop

Sollux on Loop #1 got helmed. That's the loop were Karkat was executed a la Sufferer.

It is unclear how long it took Sollux #1 to develop the code to do that, could be days, could be centuries, but he ends up sending his conscience back in time for Loops 2 and 3. It. Was not nice.

So now he just sends this grub database instead! It keeps all the information without the ugly memories, yay

Young Sollux gets it everytime at age 13 and he updates and works on it through his life until he inevitably fails, gets helmed, and has to send the file back to himself, cue: starting the loop again.

A huge part of each iteration is "how do ii keep my friiend2 from kiilliing eachother help" because he's discovered that he needs ALL of them to maybe successfully save Karkat and the rebellion.

How does Sollux achieve this? Simple, by Sim Date mechanics. Sollux basically has a walkthrough on what to do to become super good friends (or more? Lmao) with basically everyone

This accidentally turns Sollux into the conciliatory quadrant town two-wheel device every. Goddamn time.

It's mainly because while he's like that with everyone he doesn't really ACTUALLY have pale feelings for any of them, so yeah, he's developed a reputation as a heartbreaker (diamond breaker?) And a player. Which he isn't! But yeah, everyone thinks he is.

In Time Loop #21, when Dave starts working on his ship with Sollux, this information is told to him my multiple people like "yeah Sol is basically a huge slut, watch out and don't develop feelings"

Somehow the fact that that's only for CONCILIATORY quadrants doesn't click on his human head so yeah, he just assume his guy Captor has. Slept with everyone in his friend group, yeah

When Captor starts "flirting" with Dave (he's not, he's genuinely just like that chill lmao) Dave just goes "aight looks like he wants to sleep with me too"

It takes Dave about a couple of months of basically living with him on a ship to finally say "you know what? Screw it, I'll do it, let's sleep together"

And Sollux, who is NOT that kind of guy actually just says "okay? My hot human captain who'2 s/2ort of my best friiend riight now want2 to have 2ex wiith me? 2hould ii go for iit?"

A week later, Sollux decides to do it because why not? Yeah he's got the most embarrassing GENUINE pale crush on Dave, but he doesn't do quadrants because he's a Human so yeah, fuck it, let's do this instead

Captor is a bit of a freak. Mainly in the "ii kind of always have feeliing2 for people in TWO quadrant2 regardle22 of what ii do, 2o yeah, that'2 also why ii don't do quadrants, ii'm genuinely not wiired like the re2t of y'all, iim weiird"

Incidentally, that's why he worked sooo well with Karkat, but Sollux fucked that up so yeah, might as well derive some sort of happiness from being Dave's fwb

It's kind of a Time Loop Rule that Sollux set for himself that he has to stay away from Karkat. You know, so he can stay objective and SAVE him!

Karkat always inevitably ends up with Dave Strider in most iterations anyway, they're sort of soulmates

Sollux is meant to stay alone and doomed

When Dave learns about all of this he's all like "what the FUCK captor how did you hide all of this from me, also fuck you man, fate doesn't exist and plays no parts on the actions of this guy"

They kiss and make up, they're kind of dating now? They're both cowards and will not. Ever ask the other one out because that's cringe.

Dave STILL is in love with Karkat though, so yeah, he helps Sollux on his quest to save their favorite person alive literally (Karkat protection squad amirite)

It becomes a problem because Karkat is literally the most wanted guy in the entire fucking empire

"can you maybe not try to dismantle the empire for a moment and let us keep you safe?" "NO."

Dave says "you know what? Fuck it we're his new bodyguards, between my amazing ninja skills and your insane psionics nothing could get through to hurt him, right?"

Karkat is not happy about it because he still sort of hates Captor (Dave helped them make up but. It's still an issue that Sollux, you know, slept with him and fucked off to not be seen in like, an entire fucking sweep)

Karkat is trying to do his rebellion leader thing but he has to deal with this two idiots who won't just admit they're dating lmao

I'm not certain how the three of them finally get together but it's probably because Karkat. Had enough of these shenanigans.

[blueberrytwoberry]

eddie diaz and parenting

So, the thing is, Eddie Diaz's Parenting Skills seem to be taken to one extreme or another so often. Either he's held up as the best parent or the worst, and I don't know, I think there's a lot of nuance there, which is part of what makes him interesting as a character; there's some good, there's some bad, it's complex!

First of all, we get characters telling us Eddie's a great parent, but mostly this is Buck, and Buck has a reactive view on "good" parenting that basically boils down to Eddie being very affectionate and open and, face it, lenient with Chris. Buck thinks Eddie's the greatest parent ever, but Buck isn't looking at things empirically (I could get into the Buckley parents here, but that's a different manifesto and no one would like what I had to say, so).

And in any case! A lot of those things are good parenting things. It's a positive that Eddie is affectionate and supportive, that he cares, and that he adjusts his behaviors when an issue gets pointed out to him (the entire skateboarding thing, for example).

At the same time, man, Eddie underreacts to some stuff Chris does. Like, you know, throwing a bowl on the floor to break it and getting an Uber to someone else's house without any notification. Or sneaking around. You get the idea.

So, boundaries aren't a big thing for Chris. Which is, I think, actually a pretty realistic problem considering that Eddie was not in his life for years. He didn't get entry-level experience in setting boundaries, and then things were probably easier when he just didn't set them, and now...

Anyway, really, boundaries seem to be the root cause of Eddie's Parenting Issues, I think, because it's not just that he doesn't set boundaries for Chris, he doesn't set them for what he shares with Chris, not really, at least in regards to, well, relationships.

Chris knew far too much far too early about both Ana and Marisol. There's a reason that the experts recommend waiting around a year to introduce a new romantic partner to your child. Introducing a new partner almost right away (and moving them in and then out again, in Marisol's case) isn't great for a kid, because it throws everything into confusion, undercuts the child's sense of security, and, when/if said partner leaves, well...

So, you know, all of that put together, it's not exactly a shocker that Chris operates under the belief that jetting in and out of someone's life is the norm. It's also not a shocker that Eddie made the decisions that brought them there; it all adds up pretty neatly, even if it makes me want to shake him sometimes. You can see the steps that led to this destination and, to be clear, I appreciate that he's not a perfect beacon of parenting decisions. He makes mistakes, just like all the other good parents on the show.

And I also appreciate that, right now, he seems to be making the right long-term choice, because, well, Chris is, what, 14? That's old enough that the court system would allow him to decide where he wanted to live, if their situation went to court. Old enough that he could very easily just leave again if Eddie tried to "drag him back," doing more damage to their relationship in the long-term.

So, Eddie's letting him pick. Even though it hurts him. He's respecting that decision and you know what, good for him. Because part of parenting means respecting your child's decisions even when those decisions hurt you and even when those decisions hurt them, because children aren't an extension of their parents, they're their own people who get to make decisions that aren't always in their best interests, and the scope of the decisions they can make expands as they get older. Chris, at 14, can make a lot of them, including deciding to go live with his grandparents.

As a parent, you're there to help when your child needs it after the results of that decision and you can try to explain why it might be a bad idea, but you can't take the decision away. Parents aren't gods.

Anyway, I deeply appreciate that it's a consistent thing for Eddie. He doesn't want to force his way in. He wants a relationship where both people want to be there, which, I mean, seems like it should be a bare minimum for everyone, but in many cases, it is not. So, good for him.

And, yeah, I suspect that some part of Chris wants Eddie to swoop in and try to make him come back, but you know, that's part of growing up, too. Part of making decisions and telling other people what you want is accepting that they're going to believe you. Expecting other people to read your mind and know what you actually want out of a situation is a good way to live a life of constant frustration and heartache (also, to break the people around you, because no one can live under that kind of strain of constantly second-guessing and worrying what someone actually means forever).

I do also suspect, after Eddie's garage convo in 8x4, that the show might have him go make a grand gesture in Texas, which, fine. It'll be another layer of complexity, and I've no complaints there.

Anyway, I don't know, I've got too many thoughts in my head about Eddie and how he's not the best or worst parent ever; he's just a man who is trying his best, and sometimes his best is amazing, and sometimes it's awful, actually, because he's a human and that's how it goes, and I appreciate him so much as a character.

[cleverthylacine]

Yes! Do you know why this is?

Christianity was the first major religion in the "Western" world where belief was all-important.

Most other religions (aside from Islam and Buddhism) have an ethnic component. You can convert to them, but it's usually something people do as a process of joining the culture/society and assimilating to it.

This is why Constantine (and the later Roman Empire) found it to be an exceedingly powerful tool of colonialisation. Forced conversion of European and Asian pagans cut them off from the gods of their ancestors and their own religion and culture and assimilated them into Roman society. Forced conversion of Jews was meant to be genocidal, breaking down Jewish communities and assimilating the Jews; this didn't work, of course, because it largely didn't stick and cultural levels of anti-semitism meant that Christian converts were never really trusted anyway.

islam, Christianity and Buddhism are some of the world's most common and powerful religions because anyone can become a Muslim, Christian or Buddhist. And forced conversions to Christianity and Islam have both been used as a way of conquering other civilisations.

But because Christianity is especially insistent on belief--and will punish even professing Christians who are otherwise law-abiding for believing the wrong version of the story--atheism is its antithesis. This is why atheists and neo-pagans get so angry when they're called culturally Christian, because they have grown up with the idea that you cannot be a Christian unless you believe, and have actively spent their entire lives rebelling against it.

While Christianity does inform every culture that it dominates, people are not considered Christian if they don't believe.

(For this reason, in discussions with atheists and neo-pagans, I prefer to frame the issue as "Christian privilege" because usually that's what the issue is anyway. The only thing is that because anyone can become a Christian, in Christian societies, people are granted "passing privilege" unless they specifically opt out by declaring that they are something else.)

In all cultures, and in all religious ethnic groups, there are people who don't really believe in G-d or the rituals and may not conform to religious practises, but they're still part of the community as long as they abide by its laws and participate in it.

If you are born into a religion strongly tied to ethnicity or cultural group, like Judaism, Hinduism, most indigenous peoples' religions, Shinto, Voudoun...and you convert to Christianity, or Islam, you are now considered to be a Christian or a Muslim and no longer what you were before.

However, Christianity is a religion of colonisation. If you are raised in a Christian family you will still think things that mostly Christians tend to think (such as that no longer believing in a deity means you are no longer part of a religious culture). This presents a problem to people who actively wish to be dissassociated with that belief system.

If you were raised by Christians and don't go to the trouble of converting to another religion with a conversion process involving cultural retraining, and you don't become a Muslim or a Buddhist, how do you opt out and defy the stranglehold Christianity still has over science and medicine in most Christian parts of the world?

You have to be something else. That's why you find loud angry atheists and neo-pagans who are trying to reconstruct ancient European indigenous religions and/or invent their own nature religion primarily in Christian societies.

Former Christians or people raised in Christian families who reject Christianity have generally had to go to quite a bit of trouble to distinguish themselves from Christians, who beileve things that they emphatically do NOT believe. Either you decide that there are no gods/no G-d or you decide to try and come up with something else to be that will let you in without demanding you become part of their culture (Neopaganism does this).

Christianity is like Whiteness, except you get it by believing in it, rather than just being white enough. It has assmiliated its culture from all of the cultures that it has steamrolled over since it left the Roman Empire. We all know that there are some very brown people who are considered white, and that Jews can be whiter than notebook paper and white supremacists will still not accept the right of Jews to exist. And it's hard to identify what Christian culture really is given that it's different in different parts of the world, even within a single country (a Baptist in Alabama and a Quaker in Rhode Island have very different cultural experiences), just as it's hard to say what White culture is.

And Christian privilege, like White privilege, is actually the problem.

Only Christians and Muslims believe that if you are not a member of their religion (Muslims also accept Christians and Jews as people of "the book") you are broken because believing is the whole point.

And Christians more than Muslims--I believe (please correct me if I'm wrong) that Muslim conversion is called "reversion" because it's said that you've just accepted your natural state and are going to try to do the right thing from now on, whereas Christians believe that belief is necessary for salvation and without it we are all going to hell--that not only do you have to accept the divine, you must be changed by it, that we are all born in original sin and only their god's gift can undo that.

The thing is. Cultural Christianity is a real problem but 9 out of 10 times someone brings it up in this website it's to complain about gays who don't believe in astrology or some shit like that.

[myrmica]

[#was this base they built just never used after this] great news there is at least literally Once more 😆,29/11 "A New Empire" v=7HIQ6Lg9r1I summary: mostly just mapicc wrangling villagers at the other snowy mountain base "I'm still gonna be evil but people can live in my country if they'd like" ... Mapicc did. make a shrine. of Zam's 2 dropped items like they were talking about. "to our fallen comrade" chat asks if he was *banned*, which, legit! why are you phrasing it like this!

anon ask continued:

"guys I miss Prince Zam this is usually what Zam would be doing and I would just be like making jokes but now I have to actually contribute" 😂 // 33:28-34:15 the problems with playing on 20 hearts (✨i love counter-intuitive ~dynamics) // 47:40-48:16 "I miss Zam. [...] I don't think he does [miss us back]" // 1:02:28-38 Mapicc, having decided to go to spawn to see Zam "I'm not afraid of Zam. I'm afraid of the encounter ... Not afraid of Zam. Not in the slightest." ok (Zam is not visible at spawn. Dirt blocks that haven't grown grass yet are at spawn.) (goes to End, disapproves of the Space Adventure set dressing (netherrack and cobblestone)) // 1:13:27 mapicc being The Evil One is good marketing for his videos (@ brain see you should take the unconvincingness as deliberate) [the genuine belief that zam was being honest about his motives there deteriorated over time] this is why i gave in to Clipblog Urge instead of trying for only summarising to be more space-efficient, see 1:15:05->16:41, which hits: -- I wish we didn't do this [Zamfight] -- If he had restocked he would have been fine. I really don't think it was impossible for him to win, he had duped items—so much more than us. [chat: isn't restocking banned?] The guy was duping, like I don't expect him to - follow the rules -- I don't think we needed to fight. I think it was Ro's fault, I think Ro left him out way too much—that entire time he was being so dumb he was like yeah dude it's a Duality Duo I was supposed to convince Mapicc and that's my fault. Like, Zam is a part of the team too bro, you're being dumb. like... hm. sure, "Zam felt ~left out of Team Awesome" was part of it—though boy Mapicc sure was saying literally yesterday that Spoke made Zam feel left out, which I am reading as a) when talking to Other Lifestealers and not Team or chat he's not going to badmouth Roshambo but Spoke doesn't expect/need that; b) whatever name he puts in that slot - never Mapicc —but, man, is that his understanding of Zam's attitude to ~the rules? (when i listened i thought it absolutely was and now staring at the bare words i'm not sure. lol.) because. if you thought zam's entire or supermajority problem was not being valued/listened to/part of decisions, and not very much the exploits themselves... well. you might think that [not listening to zam about] the duping hurt zam, and also that he might have got rid of them the same way that roshambo 'got rid of them'. ...or you might have eclipse federation problems. ✨narrative coherence. (sorry for the ask spam, trying to send it all in one broke... so many times. 😅)

(no problem! i've consolidated them all for convenience anyway, as you can see :D)

WHAT AN INTERESTING ONE. i think mapicc makes a lot of sense here in relation to his later actions, and it's notable because this happens explicitly before the idea to get back at zam the way he ultimately will has fully occurred to him: “Spoke knows where Zam’s base is. I could pay him a visit. You know how eerie that would be? What if i did that.”

and in the meantime, before he does decide to pay that visit, he's poking around at other story ideas so to speak. like, "what if i built all this stuff and recruited a bunch of people?" which obviously goes nowhere. but it's crazy that, okay, zam betrays team awesome leaving just mapicc and ro, two players. supposedly (in zam's mind at least) doing this fixes an imbalance in the way things were before, where he was left out, where it was always Mapicc and Ro before it was him. but mapicc opens his very second stream after that betrayal with: "Team awesome is no longer a strictly two player team. Out here is going to be the biggest community of lifesteal members ever."

(side note, you're right: mapicc standing in front of a sign that reads "to our fallen comrade," answering the question "is zam banned???" with "WHAT? NO. WHERE DID YOU GET THAT FROM?" is killing me.)

like, everything in these two mapicc streams before the shoe drops point to a different kind of narrative than the one we wind up with, but hints are still there. it's sort of a perfect storm; showing up at zam's base would be interesting, and mapicc plays into being the evil one because it's entertaining and memorable, and then zam reacts Like That, which is definitely entertaining and memorable. it all builds on itself. you have mapicc alone out here bemoaning the fact that zam isn't there to do the things he's used to zam doing in his life, honoring him by hanging those items up, privately blaming ro for his not being there anymore, realizing that he knows how to get zam's base coords...

the thing about him blaming ro in private but not to other people's faces is a really good point; take the scene much later where he convinces zam to settle their conflict on mapicc-terms for example, he's rhetorically treating him and ro as a unit because that's what will get the result he wants. so he goes from buying into zam's argument about the duped items being wrong when it's useful to get ro to do what he wants, and then drops it again when he's alone with chat. i think it's like, regardless of what he does or doesn't understand about zam's driving values here, it's more beneficial to mapicc to assume that zam still has duped items/doesn't actually care; it places him in a more versatile position, it can justify his actions when he needs them justified ("he had a chance, more than you guys think." and here it seems relevant that being alone with chat is different from really being alone with himself, which then raises the question of whether a 'character' on ls can exist in the same way without the camera? i think the camera is part of the process through which the character happens in some cases. schrodinger's mapicc. that's besides the point.)

it's really funny the degree to which zam will constantly say he's wrong for things he doesn't actually think he's wrong for in s4, while mapicc will never admit he's wrong for anything even if privately he knows he might be.

[the-firebird69]

Gustavo's Revenge 🥶 Remake | Breaking Bad #Shorts

This is what they're like most of the time and they're fighting each other and they're gross the outnumbered and outpowered by the empire they refuse to see logic and you know it looks like it just keeps going on and on and on and we really do not want to deal with them and need them out they refuse to do anything and they're saying stuff is not right and screwing around with people supporting our son and we need them out today was another pretty much tragedy people can see them and he's getting the job done and it's important and that's not the tragedy part but we do see that he's right people see these idiots for what they're doing and they see the wrong and they are changing things they say and it's true all over the world there is going to be a noticeable change in leadership and in how people are treating our son and what he's going through will be very very different right now it's a very upsetting experience and we don't want it to continue and we do not want to perpetuate it we want to remove it it's in the process of changing these guys keep fighting and acting like assholes and have to be dominant and it is really disgusting there's a huge problem with what I see happening and our son has no solution and they're not offering any and the pseudo empire saw today you won't do this you're calling me to say you're going to arrest me or harass me what I'm seeing is you're the f****** criminal you're the one stalking me and that's messing with my pennies you're the one who is violating the rules in the laws of your realm not just man's law and a son turned it around the guy tried to appear like he's helping he said you're now a vegetable and you're trying to kidnap me like a whole bunch of s*** here and you're ruining your entire realm Transit I'm going to win but I might not make it because you're such pigs and he had he sent it to him in space the guy almost wept and he said we can't help what we're doing really that changes things and he said okay so he said we don't know how to do anything since I just sit back like you always do and do nothing are you going to get hurt and the guy said this he's right as rain you see it happening every day he can't see that but he did because it's real that's what we have to do and when we do it we get hurt anyways so he started to say this I don't want to see this guy beat us and I don't want to see him do anything else so we're going to come and kill you if you keep talking so the guy said I should probably shut up and he's quiet for a little it starts steaming again and the cops came in and arrested a bunch of them no but they waited and they went around town picking them up and it's because the infight and it is the empire and these people and they're all fighting over it so I'm requesting volunteers for service for this area how many times do I have to say it okay I need people to come in here I told you to go do it and I expect to get done I want people who have a conscience to report to duty here if you have a moment an hour or two to see what's going on and I want you to move it now

Thor Freya

Your friend and Winston always know that and remember it these people are getting very heinous he says they're getting pushed out of the state and it's expected it's normal but for some reason it doesn't seem like we're doing what we always do so if you're not doing what we always do my son my grandson he's still son and daughter-in-law say we have to do something different but we can't do nothing or less of something that works and I wholeheartedly agree so he's saying to do all sorts of stuff and it usually works if we hear about it we're going to know where trouble spot is we're going to have to do that now

Vital and got his wife

And it fixed the verbage otherwise we cannot shy away from a fight so we're getting ready

The first space shuttle crew that were space center crew went out yesterday and they're fighting and I think they're right and they're both wrong but they're both fighting each other. The second crew is getting ready and from Russia and he was here trying to get ready went back to court okay he's a weirdo. Now we have not much time before we're going into combat mode there's cheap no nothings will be out of the way a good riddance to that scene

The truth is you kept the Mac stuff going and your stuff going and that's all you did and you're gross we need you both out your catastrophically retarded when you can't remember one minute to the next we've had it with your method that doesn't do anything and just pisses us off it's ridiculous you're gross they will hear you Brian you'll be back you know you're going to ruin each other it's not very happy and stuff and Tommy F you're done every day now this is incident with you in it he wants you to get hit cuz he needs it so we're going to do it it works.

I am issuing the order right now

Thor Freya

Olympus

[finsterhund]

My first impressions on the Ahsoka series (first two episodes)

Okay while I was still high and teetering on the edge of using trigonometry or whatever to judge the location of my grandparents farm using the curvature or the Earth I had a friend say "AHSOKA IS OUT HAVE YOU WATCHED IT YET" presumably followed by spoiler memes. So I did not open Discord and instead I watched it. After all I had a good experience watching some of the latest episodes of The Mandalorian while dealing with my pain med gummy silly boy side effects but oh my god no. God please help me.

There are reactions to the first two episodes of the Ahsoka show here. I repeat there are reactions to Star Wars spoilers after the readmore. For fucks sake do not click the readmore unless you are prepared to experience secondhand spoilers through the disease riddled brain of a mentally ill problem child who watches Star Wars and is incapable of not thinking about dogs.

I did not really have anything coherent to put to paper until Sabine stood up the dumb public appearance thing. Because that was a very Red Spot thing to do. Did not even realize this was Lothal at first because I guess I was too zooted. And then the Red Spot things intensified and I had a bit of an autism about the whole thing. BRO NOT SABINE PULLING A RED SPOT AND THE ENTIRE TIME IM LIKE YOURE NOT GONNA MAKE IT YOU ARE LIMITED IN SPEED UNLIKE HIM but then it turns out through manner of character relations and akira bike slide she succeeds at what she was trying to do without needing to aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Sabine Wren Red Spot character parallels yay. Depressing though that not even the rebels/new republic are conscious enough of the sufferings of, let's be honest, a former child soldier, to understand that the type of trauma these sets of circumstances this type of character has gone through really fucking needs therapy. They're trying to parade her around like a show dog too for fucks sakes. No wonder Sequel Trilogy Luke regressed so bad and had spaniel rage moment on Kylo. Conspiracy theory hat time. The empire was based on the US, the Rebels the Vietcong. George said so in an interview. Disney sips that sweet American government nectar so maybe they're intentionally trying to make the rebels and New Republic look bad to try and make what black and white mortality almost, and in some ways literally into something more grey and more "it's good to uphold the status quo unless you have cool powers. But you DON'T get cool powers in real life so..." I'm exaggerating how I feel but I'm aware of how the US military funded the MCU. Also owned by Disney. So hmmm. Still. I never figured the New Republic was this out of touch. God now that I'm actually getting my creative energy back I finally may be able to sit down and read the Thrawn Trilogy like I've wanted to for six thousand years except Cazza died and I lost the ability to turn off my dyslexia(???????) but anyways I might actually be able to now to actually assert the most widely accepted extended universe canon for this era. See if Disney is wildly deviating or not. I intentionally made modern Power Island backwards in a way I always thought the Rebels and New Republic weren't but we saw a lot of fucked up new republic fumbles in the latest season of The Mandalorian too so I've just gotta accept the New Republic is more on par with Modern Power Island's infuriatingly dated approach and repeated incidents of shitting the bed which fucking hurts me thanks didney

Really mixed feelings about this show so far tbh. Still technically high as a kite and I keep fucking thinking about pikmin. It is really fucking hard to not think about Pikmin when I have having an autism about Pikmin and also I am watching Star Wars which is also an autism and I have had the weed gummy. Everybody make a wild guess what part of episode 1 the End of Day theme earwormed its way into my brain with the force of a semi truck and win a prize. Also the stakes just don't feel high? Like I'm not able to take it as seriously. I'm really kinda upset that nobody is taking Sabine's really blatant survivors guilt and PTSD seriously. I am now pissed off that I'm on the edge of "the lightsaber wound should be fatal" and "if they kill her off before her trauma recovery arc is ever resolved to show how strong little fucked up white dog with the eye crusties is I'm going to be so mad"

And on that note. I have no clue what the dark side apprentice character is named yet. Idk if they said her name or not. But she straight up looks like a little sopping wet shivering white dog with those big goopy tear stains and I am just FUCKING LOSING MY MIND. I burst into fits of giggles whenever there's a face shot and I'm so mad at how fucking stupid I am about it and how much my brain won't let me dispel it. I am physically incapable of not thinking about those little fucked up white dogs whenever she's on screen. There's all these thematic callbacks to Darth Maul in the Phantom Menace with her in the first episode and I'm a huge fucking Phantom Menace apologist but it's completely sidelined in my experience by how she's one of those little fucking white dogs. The lightsaber fight was awkward and janky but it is fully believable because Sabine wasn't force sensitive as far as I'm aware, and Ashoka only briefly trained her with the darksaber in Rebels? Unless this show is implying more. I guess it is because how she's able to have a saber fight at all in the first place not to be too spoilers but wtfff? Both these teenagers, Sabine is still meant to be a teen I think?, are just glowstick baton-ing all over the place and I'm thinking "bruh someone come separate these children before someone gets an eye poked out" and I really don't see how Sabine went down at all. Usually I'm like "Disney Star Wars has too much plot armour" but this time I'm like "bro Sabine is mando and did all that shit in Rebels who fucking nerfed her? Did she find some weird spice-based essential oil through a pyramid scheme and self prescribed it as a sedative for her undiagnosed PTSD???? At the very least she should be able to body the trembling little eye crusties dog. I'd like to stress that a force sensitive "little pathetic white dog with the eye crusties" being taken into an abusive master and apprentice relationship with a skilled dark side user could definitely work, but I really don't think that's the angle they're taking with this character with an extensive backlog of past accomplishments and growth.

Also one of Thrawn's allies just so happens to have the name Morgan and unfortunately my brain refuses to not associate that name with Bantam's Musical Morgan who coincidentally is a sad fucked up looking antique mohair stuffed dog that predominantly was solid white in color.

Oh shit I see what's happening. Sabine keeps getting the fucking shaft by everyone. Everyone except Hera who's been absent. Not allowed to take advantage of her own areas of expertise both in universe and in the writing. It's like they're trying to respond to the critical reception that Rey got without actually realizing that Sabine is an entirely different character with an extensive backlog of past accomplishments and growth.

Oh my god I just noticed eyecrusties has a padawan braid now. I'm assuming that's a new development otherwise I would have noticed by now.

Oh shit I thought Sabine based her lightsaber off of Ezra's but it's actually just his. Okay so I'm still going to assume she's not force sensitive and Ahsoka just tried to train her with the darksaber. Bro am I missing memories from watching Rebels or something(?)

Oh my god can Sabine and Ashoka just talk to each other!? Ashoka have you just shut off your force perceptions about Sabine ENTIRELY? Yeah I know I can tell you have unresolved trauma yourself in regards to Anakin but don't fucking let the cycle of abuse continue as emotional neglect use the force to fucking understand or some shit AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHGGGHHH Also apparently Sabine IS force sensitive????? because lightsaber building droid from the clone wars cartoon said so???? (I really like his live action translation from the cartoon design btw) which I mean???!!! Uhhhhhh!?! Was this hinted at at all? I can't remember. Like she struggled with the Darksaber because she wasn't force sensitive???? I literally did a full marathon of Rebels like a year ago???? Also I really think he should have been a bit more cautious with "the only time you're wasting is your own" thing because she very clearly needs some level of therapy or support structure that doesn't mean she should rush right back into training. Like yeah she's "wasting her time" not benefiting from having an adequate support structure but rushing right back into things to compensate??? Man.

Oh my god the protocol droid choosing the right exact time to bring up a grievance they had knowing full well it was relevant information right at that moment who basically said fuck my job malicious compliance was very relatable for some reason. It'll end my job but it will also destroy your whole career. Fuck your shit up fascist sympathizer scum.

Also just fucking shoot down the hyperdrive transport! I'm with Chopper on this one. Fuck the port. That one Corellian facility committed like treason or something. I understand putting a tracker on it instead I guess but I crave violence and bloodshed and explosions.

Me: please don't do the Mulan thing Sabine: does the Mulan thing Me: screams

Sabine over here hacking off her hair with a knife instead of more healthy coping mechanisms.

Me: sees the eye of sion for the first time Me: wow are they fucking making a stargate or something lmaooooo

And then episode 2 of this two part season premiere is at an end. I struggled to take it seriously but I'm still invested and don't want to wait. I guess that's a good thing but man. I guess I'm underwhelmed. Disney's mediocrity finally catching up to me I guess. Love these characters and don't feel the actors are bad at all but it feels like this is a product of the writing strike even though it was made before the strike. Maybe there's executive meddling at play here that's also reflective of the conditions that lead to the strike.

Also I fucking love the lothcat designs. BABIES AAAAAHYGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH

[gffa]

Hi Lumi! I’m the anon who asked about your thoughts on the sequel trilogy. Thanks for your answer! It made me kind of want to rewatch TROS with this new lens because I do get what you said about the bones of the movie being good. Another thing your post got me thinking about was the concept of “The Chosen One” because I know a lot of people were frustrated that the sequel trilogy seemed to throw Anakin’s last act of bringing balance to the Force out the window. And I got to thinking that nowhere in the originals or prequels does it state that once Anakin brings balance, there will always be balance. Unfortunately, evil rises again. Anakin brought balance and it’s not his fault things became unbalanced again. That doesn’t diminish the moment and impact of his sacrifice. And with Anakin dead and Luke not in a place to answer the Force’s call, the Force needed to find a new Chosen One. And years after the sequel trilogy takes place, there will probably be a new threat that needs a new hero to be called. I kind of like the idea of there being a sort of community of Chosen Ones rather than one person carrying all of that. Anyway, I’ve written a mini essay in your inbox so I’ll sign off now. Thank you for all you do!

Hi again! To be fair, I can't make the movie more polished than it is, it's always going to feel like so much wasted potential, but I do genuinely like the bones of what's there and will always defend that. As for the "Chosen One" thing, that's exactly my view of things, too! Rey being a Chosen One doesn't take away from Anakin being a Chosen One, because, like, what is balance of the Force? It's when there's stability and light in the galaxy. It doesn't mean that the actions of one single Jedi fix all the problems, it means they take the Sith Lord out and the galaxy has to help heal things. Anakin killing Palpatine doesn't mean the Empire suddenly implodes, it means that without the Emperor there, the Rebellion can get to work on establishing the New Republic, it means everyday people can start cleaning up the mess of the Empire. Anakin is the Chosen One meant to destroy the Sith and balance can be restored through that. But what happens when the galaxy gets lazy and the New Republic isn't proactive enough? What happens when people decide to rest on Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa's laurels? Evil rises again. And looking around the world today, that's an incredibly salient message, especially when this movie came out. "Oh, we beat the Nazis in the previous generation, we don't have to pay attention to that anymore!" Yeah, we fucking do. And Luke's not there to be called on to defeat the rise of the First Order, he's cut himself off from the Force. So, the Force chooses a new Chosen One, Rey, and puts her in the position this time, she destroys the Sith, but the galaxy still has to rise up and help her on the bigger stuff. One Jedi cannot defeat the entire oppressive regime, but everyone in the galaxy standing up to fight back against the First Order? That is what balance should be. Rey removes the Sith Lord, so that the rest of the galaxy can help each other again. Because I don't think one Sith Lord can be the sum total of what determines balance. The Force lives in everything, every living thing has the Force moving through it, every living thing contributes to the Force. If the quintillions of people in the galaxy are suffering, if they're angry at the state of what's happening, if they're hurting, then how can that not affect the Force? One Jedi can't fix all that, but if Rey gets rid of the Sith Lord and the rest of the galaxy says, yes, we are going to help this time, we're determined, we're going to hold on to hope, we're going to fight to help others, which they can do because the worst part of the catalyzing of those feelings is gone? Then I really love that as a message. Rey being a Chosen One doesn't take anything away from Anakin being the Chosen One of his time, because they're not the sole determiners of the Force. Everyone has to do their part, no matter how big or small, that fits the theme of "balance" so much better imo.