#but IT is much more compelling to me

[windcarvedlyre]

The next IT rotation is pyro/electro/geo.

C13 Noelle, it is time. I've left you unbuilt for too long.

[crazymecjc]

once more, with feeling.

(fanart for @kristalliankka’s fantastic fic, an iterative approach! go check out the whole trilogy of works, they’re so incredibly good)

[rikkivoid]

a pawn twice over

[unionizedwizard]

so. many people have already pointed that koana is sort of like an ARR alphinaud remix and while it is not untrue, i think this analysis is only superficially correct. because the salient point of koana's character is that he feels shame and resentment towards his roots & origins and therefore overcompensates with sharlayan weabooism (well-intentioned, but still unsuitable). he comes off as really weird and stuck up, in the beginning especially, where it's like. "what the fuck is this guy's problem" in a way that's rather similar to the average player's reaction to ARR alphinaud.

BUT!

the thing with ARR alphinaud is that he was the Quintessential Sharlayan, both on account of his upbringing and family tree, and of his personal interests and achievements. he was (and still is) secure in his origins and cultural identity. koana's case is different, because he clearly loathes tradition and turali cultural practices in a way that comes across (and fundamentally is) really weird and destructive, which comes to bite him in the ass on many occasions during the rite of succession (and understandably so).

it all starts to make sense when you learn about his backstory though. while we know that wuk lamat doesn't remember anything of her own childhood, having been adopted by gulool ja ja as a toddler, koana was adopted at a much older age. he remembers his early years, and that's what fuels his entire vision for the future of tural. as he tells it, he was born to one of the most traditionalist hhetsarro tribes in tural, and abandoned (accidentally(?) left behind) during one of their yearly migrations, only surviving thanks to a pelupelu merchant who rescued and took him in before employing him in his tuliyollal shop. an obviously incredibly traumatic event that would shape everything about his future mindset: he's closed off and withdrawn to the extreme, highly analytical, values self-sufficiency and independence and technical innovations above all else, because that's how he survived to begin with. because his nomadic, highly traditional, presumably (from what we've seen of the one hhetsarro tribe we've met so far) tight-knit, spiritual and social tribe rejected and abandoned him. it would make sense that he'd rationalize this unfathomable violence by leaning hard into the opposite, and letting his own pain and resentment color his entire vision, turning his own feelings into a more general mindset of shame, resentful inadequacy, and complete rejection of anything "traditional"

i think sharlayan was a good choice for him because it's pretty much, indeed, the opposite atmosphere: in sharlayan culture, family ties are a lot less emphasized, while the kind of ties that colleagues, peers, teachers and students develop are considered as very important (see pretty much every sidequest and margrat's custom deliveries and all). all these relationships based on a common work and aspirations rather than origins would indeed agree with koana's character better, and his analytical skills, vision and intelligence are pretty much the most valued traits to them.

which is why it was actually such a stroke of genius to have thancred and urianger specifically support him. of course, both of them had a character development arc that echoed with koana's issues: learning how to express himself more openly and acknowledge his feelings, all that, meaning they were uniquely able to help him. but when you look more closely, they can also relate to him on a more personal level: thancred was "adopted" by louisoix as an orphaned lominsan street urchin, probably at a similar age as koana when he was adopted by gulool ja ja; and urianger's parents notably "abandoned" him to the point he was mostly tagging along at moenbryda's house and, later, at the leveilleur estate, as louisoix's disciple and honorary uncle to the twins (also worth noting that urianger and koana share the same flavor of autism).

so the rite of succession was a much-needed window into his own biases and (literal) coping mechanisms, and must have been quite difficult to deal with considering pretty much all the feats involved interacting with and strengthening tight-knit smaller communities with strong traditions and family ties. luckily, partly thanks to thancred and urianger (but not only! he did the work himself), he was clear-minded enough to realize his own failings, and well-intentioned enough to step down - because he did not want power for its own sake, unlike zoraal ja; he wanted to protect the turali people from a potential invasion by leaning hard into foreign technological advances, therefore mimicking his own personal journey and adapting his own tried-and-true methods of survival: anticipating the hardships, being as independent and self-sufficient as possible, and choosing isolationism.

and finally i want to point out that the new techniques and technologies he imported from sharlayan are all (safe, fast and reliable) modes of transportation: aetherytes, dirigibles (including the alpaca carriage adaptation), and trains. interesting choice, moreso considering that while aetherytes are the #1 sharlayan specialty, they have neither dirigibles nor trains; which takes on a whole new layer of meaning when you remember that his original tribe was nomadic and that he specifically was left behind, stranded in the desert, during one of their traditional migrations............

in this regard he truly IS green g'raha, considering that g'raha was, similarly, raised in a traditional seeker manner before being sent to sharlayan for his own (and the tribe's) safety; of course the difference is that g'raha embraced his heritage by locking himself in the crystal tower by the end of ARR, since the G tribe was tasked with guarding the remaining allagan ruins and weapons, to make sure their power would not be misused by yet another imperialist military force (he locked himself in the tower to reinforce its defenses and make sure the garlean empire would not access it to conquer eorzea)

thank you for your time 👍

[szfiction]

This parallel makes me insane actually (and there is something incredibly Lawlu about it to me)

[borgialucrezia]

i don't think I'll ever be as fascinated by a character as i am by this extremely gorgeous and morally ambiguous femme fatale with nerves of steel. she's incredibly intelligent and cunning even from a very young age (she's a borgia through and through after all lol). in one of her very first scenes she effortlessly deduces that the pigeon letters are being used to bribe cardinals into voting for her father to become the next pope. she demonstrates her manipulative prowess by seducing a stable boy and leading him to tamper with her abusive husband's saddle and causing him to fall and break his leg. she singlehandedly outplays the french king by charming him and saves her brother from a massacre. she orchestrates the public shaming of her husband to annul their marriage, she even goes so far as to manipulate two brothers for her own pleasure (and to spite her father, who always forces unwanted marriages on her) before disposing of both of them. she attempted fratricide more than once to avenge her doomed lover, she commits incest (and would gladly do it again), supports regicide to get her baby back, blackmails cardinals, and poisons an entire castle to make her escape, and successfully poisons her second husband to release him from his suffering, and the list goes on!! i could really go on explaining why i admire her character who's naturally supposed to take a dark and ambitious path like the rest of her family but chooses to control her own destiny and seek to reclaim her innocence back... honestly i can't even put into words how much i love her.

[ouroborosorder]

I think Arknights' Sami may be, outright, one of the coolest ideas I've ever seen in a piece of fiction. Most things would have said "The Collapsals are why Sami is like this!" But no, Arknights knows better. Sami is already a place where snow falls upwards, where you can see the ghosts of people who are not dead, where 4 story tall shadows pass by and block out the stars at night. Sami is strange, illogical, and hostile, but it is not Wrong. It's just a place where the natural order is different from anything else in the world, but you can come to comprehend it, come to an accord with Sami and the way it exists. But the Collapsals are Wrong. Their blood is poison, their bodies are corpses, their knowledge is a curse. You can't comprehend it. You can't come to an accord with it. You can only die. It is one form of strangeness, the comforting unsettling feeling of a different natural order, being intruded by one that is just outright Wrong, uncanny, broken, and evil.

[kyouka-supremacy]

Always emotional about the fact that Atsushi never feels the need to force himself to be okay whenever he's around Akutagawa

YES!!!!!! YES!!!!!!!!!!! EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Look I already elaborated on this a bit in the tags here before but. The thing is that Atsushi doesn't even realize that he's so relieved to have found a guy that sucks so bad, who is his enemy and who he doesn't fear, he can finally drop the good guy facade he feels like he has to put up as a defense mechanism with everyone else. AND IT'S SO GOOD. And it's so good to see Atsushi's true colors, this snarky and even cocky I'd dare say side of him that he so rarely shows. And the fact that Akutagawa is the only one that can bring it to light!!! Just. AAAAAAAAHH.

[emmaswanned]

"wait! i need a gun!" "no chance."

--alan wake & alex casey in alan wake 2

[domokunrainbowkinz]

not arguing w a dude that has big brown eyes. whatever u say beautiful

(I’m only on ch 29 no spoilers pls!!!!) go wild with spoilers I am now done the book and am extremely mentally unwell

[jessaerys]

sun visits the moon at spk headquarters and gets so so so sleepy

[bumblingbabooshka]

Re: Tuvok being Janeway's true biggest enabler, I really like how it's implied that Janeway absolutely returns the favor

Like, Tuvok has the nerve to basically tap Chakotay on the shoulder and go "Um? I hear you're going with B'Elanna's plan? That's not how it works. I, Tuvok, just made a suggestion and you're not following it which is really confusing to me. If JANEWAY were here-" and I do love him for it and I DON'T think he's lying. I think Janeway really does have a long history of listening to Tuvok over others, perhaps without even realizing it. Janeway & Tuvok together sound like hell in space, a literal nightmare, and I adore them for it. Janeway unintentionally strokes Tuvok's ego by letting him do whatever he thinks is best in any situation while Tuvok unintentionally feeds Janeway's self-image of what a glorious captain should be and I'm not saying Tuvok isn't smart or Janeway isn't a great captain [they objectively are these things] - I just really love this ouroboros they've got going on. They bring out the best in each other, they're so selfless, they'd sacrifice their life for the other, and also they're a little bit full of themselves in part because the other keeps feeding them, and I think that's beautiful✨

Tuvok Voice: Sorry. This is...really difficult for me...I'm just not used to not being favored by the captain. Chakotay: ................................................................

[klanced]

you are so lucky to not have watched s4-8

people always ask me 'katie why did you only watch half of voltron??' and i'm just like guys i thought we all agreed that voltron was not a very good show 💀

[cthoniccompanion]

me during the major update trailer: huh prometheus is kind of an odd choice for a secondary antagonist

me after fighting him 1 time on olympus: oh actually I'm not normal about him At All huh

[mister13eyond]

dont normally post about drama but this seems relevant:

im seeing a lot of people jump to "james somerton was never good anyways" in retaliation for the hbomb expose, but there's a really fine line to tread there before you get into stepping on the toes of the people he stole from, you know?

some of his videos and analysis did seem genuinely intelligent, thoughtful, insightful, and well-written. yeah, it turns out those are the result of him stealing from other people. but that doesnt mean the original writers WEREN'T intelligent, thoughtful, insightful and good writers. he had plenty of garbage opinions interspersed throughout, but the reason many people (myself included) were suckered in by him is that the queer creators he stole from DID have really important and interesting analysis. the parts of his videos that were good were stolen, but by discounting his essays entirely we're throwing the baby out with the bathwater and insisting those he stole from didn't have anything important to say.

the parts he himself supplied were trash, but he stole the work of some genuinely brilliant and insightful writers and passed it off as his own- and that writing still exists and is still brilliant and insightful; we just know now who was actually responsible for it and who to thank for that work

lets just be careful when we smugly proclaim that we always hated everything he had to say- because a lot of the words we're discounting were never his to begin with, and the last thing those authors need is to have their work trash talked because it ended up in the mouth of someone dishonest

[oneshotgremlin]

Fake Peppino Speech Headcanons (that nobody asked for):

Hc that Fake Peppino thinks "forwards", Pizzahead just messed up their brain to mouth connection during creation so they speak backwards:

(I find the ciphers some peeps use for Fake's speech very cool, one that comes to mind being atbash [where in a way he's speaking backwards, just alphabetically]. Personally tho I can't really see anyone naturally speaking in ciphers unless it's like Stanford Pines lmao)

Since only their speaking is backwards, they can reverse their speech forwards w/ effort or assistance:

(Their tone still goes forwards! Hence why they can still get across that they're questioning something even though the words itself are backwards)

Not all "assistance" is helpful, however:

(Did I really commit to a whole ass headcanon just for the sake of this dumb joke? Of course I did who do you take me for)