#but it can also mean ''politely''

[bruciemilf]

One of my biggest gripes about the dc fandom is how simplified and stripped down ‘child soldier’ became as a term.

Like, ya’ll, I don’t think forcing a rich guy to take you in and make him teach you martial arts is equal to having your entire childhood ripped from the root up for military purposes. That’s just me tho idk

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

At your side [End of Season 2]

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[winn-wynn]

I feel it in my bones. I think people called the Weasley siblings the wrong sibling name.

Like they went to school around the same time. Not just the twins, like maybe teachers call Ron “Bill” by accident or Fred “Percy” which gets a gasp from both Fred and George in offense. Ginny gets mixed up too just because it be funny as fuck.

Hell I bet their own parents confuse them too calling them the wrong name because that is a sibling experience

[marinette-buginette]

Kiyi is not a Princess - A Look At the Fire Nation's Line of Succession

It's not even that much about Kiyi. But the creators seemingly got so lost in the sauce that their ideas about how absolutist monarchies work are as good as taken out of Disney movies now. So, let's set the record straight.

The Fire Nation line of succession

When it comes to royal lines, there were multiple elements that went into setting the line of succession: descent, sex, legitimacy, religion etc. For the Fire Nation, the ones we have 100% confirmed are descent and legitimacy (this last one seen with the Camellia-Peony War, where Chaejin was excluded from the succession because he was born out of wedlock). I would have gone on a whim to say sex counts as well, however, it is a bit foggy. In the Reckoning of Roku, it is mentioned that Firelord Taiso believed Zeisan (Sozin's younger sister) would have been a more competent ruler but could never become Fire Lord due to being a nonbender (I didn't actually read the book, so if someone who did wants to pitch in with the exact wording, please feel free to). This implies that being a Firebender is a requirement, but being a woman isn't. However, it also implies that Taiso would have been fine with ignoring the descent part (Sozin was older) if he deemed fit. Skipping the firstborn in favour of the second one isn't unheard of when it comes to succession so sure. And he is the absolute monarch, if he wants to pass papers to change the line of succession, he can. It is unclear to me if there is any power in place to veto or block a Fire Lord's ruling on any matter so for all we know, if he wanted, he could have. Plus, the fact that Ozai got crowned over Iroh because it was 'Azulon's dying wish'. For the religion part, it seems like the Fire Sages have to perform the coronation and acknowledge the monarch.

So to make it more digestible, the line of succession (while Azulon was still alive) is: Iroh → Lu Ten (firstborn of the heir) → Ozai → Zuko → Azula. With Lu Ten dead, Iroh MIA (at the time) then we have Ozai → Zuko → Azula. When Iroh came back, he gets added at the end of this line of succession. I am a bit unclear on Iroh in current times because it looks to me like he rescinded his role in the line of succession altogether with deciding to live in Ba Sing Se and letting politically inexperienced Zuko rule instead of taking over for a few years to create some stability.

Right now, we have Fire Lord Zuko and his heir presumptive (aka an heir that can be displaced if the monarch has children) Azula. Unless he wrote a decree to take her out of the line of succession — which would require a lot more brain cells than the writers are willing to give Zuko, not that he had a lot of them when it came to politics to begin with —then she's next in line. It doesn't matter how much anyone wants it or not, if Zuko drops dead tomorrow, Azula gets the throne.

Now, onto the other matter.

How does one become a Princess?

Option 1: You marry into the royal family. For example, Ursa was styled as a Princess, as she married Prince Ozai.

Option 2: You're born in a royal line. For example, Azula is a Princess because her father is a Prince, her grandfather, at the time of her birth, was the ruling monarch of the Fire Nation etc.

Bonus Option it's complicated: Royals had a habit of having children out of wedlock sometimes. Said children, if acknowledged, could be granted titles (Count of X, Dutchess of Y etc.) . Getting acknowledged and a title does not automatically put you in the line of succession, though. For example, Firelord Chaeryu was forced to acknowledge Chaejin and avoid dishonoring his noble mother and her house, but he excluded Chaejin from the royal family.

So Kiyi is not a Princess. Simple as that. Neither of her parents are of the royal line.

Could she become a Princess?

Well, this gets interesting.

Let's start with the fact that Kiyi got a pretty bad deal in a class-based monarchical society.

First thing, while her mother is a noble, her father is a commoner. Even if Ursa's family became destitute after Roku's death because of political reasons, it does not change the fact that she is still nobility unless Sozin revoked Rina's title, which I am not 100% sure he did. We don't know anything about Jinzuk besides the fact that he was the magistrate of Hira'a. While magistrates do not have to be part of the nobility, they can be. He could have been a second/third/fourth son of a small noble family with limited power/resources, given the position he was given was in a place like Hira'a, which is what I am inclining towards. He could have also been just some guy, but someone appointed him, and as a rule of thumb, you don't just go into the street and pick a random person to appoint to an administrative and leadership role, even if it's a small town. Given that Azulon was set on Ozai marrying Ursa because she was Roku's granddaughter, whether or not Jinzuk was a noble, it doesn't matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. However, in Kiyi's case, it does if Zuko wants to give her a title. It's more stigma than anything because people can be given nobility titles for specific services to the crown etc. But this is not her only issue. Which leads me to...

Second thing, Kiyi is a bastard. Which, in my opinion, would hold even more stigma than her father not being a noble. Ursa never divorced Ozai. As far as we know, polygamist marriages aren't a thing in the Fire Nation, so her marriage to Ikem/Noren is invalid. Could she be granted a divorce retroactively by the Fire Sages? Actually, yeah. Because Zuko named Shyu as High Sage, which was like the one sound political move he ever did tbh. We don't see what the Fire Nation's stance on divorce is, but given that Shyu is a Zuko loyalist, he'd probably grant Ursa retroactive divorce from Ozai. I am not a legal expert, however, as far as I know, retroactive decisions tend to be reserved for correcting a mistake or omission in the written record. She was still married to Ozai when she went and married Ikem. Though technically, she married him under a fake identity (and so did he), which might make the marriage void regardless in the eyes of the law. Idk how Spirit involvement affects legal matters in the world of Avatar, but as things stand right now, unless we pretzel-twist ourselves to make excuses, Kiyi is born outside of legitimate wedlock.

Now, Zuko might not care. In fact, he probably doesn't. He could still give Kiyi a title, including that of Princess. It was not uncommon for illegitimate relatives of rulers to be offered roles/titles once acknowledged. The real question is if he would put her in the line of succession. Kiyi has no business being there because she does not have royal blood.

Could Zuko do whatever he wants, give her the title of Princess and shove her in the line of succession while taking Azula out of it for good measure? Sure, he can. He'd probably love that, in fact. But that leaves two things open.

One, nobility would not take kindly to a bastard child of a commoner with no royal blood being in the line of succession. If we also add the angle of taking Azula out of it, it would just increase their ire. There is already a long list of why the nobility is probably angry at Zuko (and should attempt to assassinate him a lot more than they do), but I think this one in particular has other implications. There might be nobles who are neutral about Zuko. Shamelessly discarding societal norms on a whim might make their perspective swing towards negative. It could make him lose goodwill he might have or potential allies.

Two, it will make the commoners wonder. If this random girl, raised as a peasant, with a commoner father, born out of wedlock, can be put in the line of succession just like that — while discarding a princess of the blood if we are at it — then… is the royal line not that special? The whole premise of a monarchy is that the monarch and their descendants have the divine right to rule. Being part of that bloodline gives you the right to rule. So if that can be discarded, if that bloodline is not all that important… should Zuko be Firelord? And most importantly, does the Fire Nation really need a monarch at all?

Kiyi is not a princess, and for the well-being of Zuko's reign — which is already barely holding together — he better not make her one.

[casuallyodd]

Less people vote than you may realize, so your vote matters a lot.

This is really important for so many people to understand.

For Americans, you need to see how much your vote can matter. This is the popular vote and sadly the electoral college still matters here. But it shows how much you can change things. By voting and by convincing people to vote who don't normally.

For those outside the US that don't really get our system (not that we always do either), this shows how disengaged the plurality of our electorate is. It shows why so many of us keep harping on the Vote Blue thing. It's annoying to us too, but our elections are often decided by only a few percentage points.

[dootznbootz]

Hi. I'm cyberbullying a long dead poet because of his shitty fanfic. Enjoy. I'd love it if you joined me.

(Before you get mad at me, yes, I know Eugammon of Cyrene is an important figure and all that. I'm sick with some sort of flu. Let me cyberbully an ancient dead fanfic writer in peace.)

[etz-ashashiyot]

Friendly reminder that A Land for All is an excellent organization that is still, even now, working to create an equitable resolution to the conflict. Please check them out:

I also strongly recommend reading through their full proposal here.

[brackenferns]

i know i'm not the first to say this, but the acolyte's cancellation has confirmed how tired i am of disney's decision-making when it comes to their content. i know nostalgia is the easiest way to a big payout, but we can only take so many spinoffs before the universe starts to feel too small. but then fresh content—content that's building on the canon by looking to old star wars lore while asking new questions—fizzles out.

it's the sequel trilogy all over again. we're promised something new, something that actually expands the canon rather than just recycling it, even bringing in concepts from legends, and then the rug is ripped out from underneath us & we're punished for ever caring about any of it. silly babygirl! palpatine was always the big bad (don't worry about the fact that this is thematically nonsense and not foreshadowed in any way), and rey isn't a nobody ("your parents sold you because they loved you"), and this isn't a story about how the force transcends human categories and dynasties (represented by a grey jedi force dyad between a legacy skywalker and a nobody orphan from a backwater planet, fulfilling not only balance between light and dark but also transcending the old to become something new). silly idiot!!! rey's a palpatine by birth and a skywalker by self-adoption and god forbid she create her own identity outside of these names our fans recognize. watch as she stands alone on a sand planet that has no personal significance to her, ending her arc almost exactly as she began. but look!! two suns! neat

i don't even know if fanservice is the right word. at a certain point, it just starts to feel like they're quaking in their boots at the thought of doing anything new. i had my gripes with some of the choices in the acolyte, but at least it was unique. it explored a new era and asked questions that star wars has only ever flirted with. like: what happens to the children who are uprooted from their homes at such a young age, yet can't find their place in the jedi order? how does one survive in a supposedly honorable system that nevertheless relies on the repression of some of humanity's most fundamental emotions? is it possible that an organization dictating exactly how one ought to interact with the very life force of the universe... could perhaps be faulty and shortsighted? what happens when the ways of that order clash with other cultures and worldviews? (spoilers: space colonialism). and that's not even to mention the ideas they play with re: the force itself (vergences! plagueis! force witches!)

i know not everyone loved the show, but a lot of people really did care about it. a lot of people, like me, were excited to see these new questions being raised. but forget it—the disney gods have decreed that it didn't hit some magical threshold of streaming hours or reach a "broad enough" audience in the two months it's been out. but don't worry guys. turn your brains off and tune in for the next spinoff 2 chewy 2 bacca

[rinblid]

I did draw the bros last month tho

Hyperfixated (don't come for me I've got ADHD) on SMB for a few weeks during summer, was halfway through redesigning Bowser when it ended and that's the only drawing I managed to finish in time so it's all I've got to offer sorry sjnsnzjs

ALSO they have Hypochondroplasia !

[tapakah0]

heeeeeyy tapa. you and cass are friens.

DoEs AnYonE KnOw WhaT tf HaPpEnEd to HIm!!!!

hello? cass you ok???? he didnt mention going on vakation.

did he abandon us??? is he tired???

No panic, okay, listen, Cass did send pretty long ago a link to their another account, she didn't disappear, she appears online and keeps creating great content with what she currently enjoys the most, I'm pretty sure she gets dozens of asks about how she does and if she doesn't answer it has a reason. I am a bit uncomfortable to ask people stuff like "how do you do" since for me it sounds a bit awkward, I see a post from that person and guess that they are okay, maybe posts under them have tags explaining if they are tired, resting or have too much work that has to be done and so on *whispering* You all were abandoned *evil laugh*

So yeah, just relax, search the link if you're really interested in the other content she creates since passionate comments to work give so much creation boost than just a few hollow tags, otherwise just look around and enjoy the stuff you like

[ariadne-mouse]

Doodle prompt: What ultimately convinced the Platinum Sanctuary to add grips for Athudashionus so he could hang upside down in the temple.

It was really a matter of dignity.

[deoidesign]

Quick re-do of a 4 year old piece

[starry-bi-sky]

pouring one out for luo binghe in my disciple SQQ fic, poor guy has taken a backseat here. we're nearly 30k words deep and he hasn't even shown his face once. it'll be much longer before he even actually talks to Shen Qingqiu.

(i say im pouring one out but in reality im sitting in my director's chair chewing on a cigar and wearing a beret as he tearily and unsuccessfully pleads with me for more scenes with Shen Qingqiu)

[formerly-evil]

DONT FORGET TO VOTE IN THE EU ELECTIONS!!!

[evilkitten3]

@senjufound @obitoslover gonna respond to all three of you together (sorry for the delay but. i either did not notice your reblogs or noticed and forgot. impossible to say. i am the king of being oblivious. whoopsie)

first, concerning the backstabbing thing. very often, when characters are extremely untrusting, they tend to constantly be on guard for betrayal (which amusingly can manifest in them getting betrayed specifically because of that). madara is an odd subversion of that. his trust issues seem to have more to do with a lack of faith in others' abilities. in the cases he worries about safety, it's never his own. he worries that the senju will betray the uchiha, but he doesn't worry that hashirama will betray him, which. uh. whoops.

when madara offers sasuke the opportunity to join him, i think that may have been some kind of twisted kindness. i think he felt that, since he and sasuke were the only uchiha left (unless you count obito who was. basically on black zetsu life support at the time iirc), he owed sasuke an out. i don't think it had anything to do with any resemblance sasuke had to izuna, personally, i think he would've made that offer regardless. they're family, and he very much understands not wanting to feel isolated from your family. ofc sasuke doesn't give two fucks about him, so that's that. he tried, sasuke said nah, that's all he owed him. oh well. bye kid.

i was reading something about a week or so ago (don't remember if it was like an article or a fanfic or something lmao just that it was in japanese) and the author commented that madara seems to be a character with high pride, but low self-esteem. i think that was referring to pre-edoten madara, but i think it's an interesting take. he's very, very aware of how strong he was; he's not remotely insecure about his fighting capabilities. he's so confident in those that he walks around with his back completely unshielded even after dying bc someone stabbed him through the back. but at the same time, in spite of his power, his life has been one failure after another. he was never strong enough to protect his siblings, never strong enough to secure the uchiha clan's safety, never strong enough to truly put an end to the bloodshed. he was the most powerful man alive.... save the one person he really needed to be stronger than. the senju and the uchiha had been fighting for who even knows how long, but it's under madara's leadership that they effectively surrendered (hashirama can pretend it's a truce all he wants but. well. honey), and when he realized where konoha was heading and tried to pull them out, they had no more faith left in him. and i.... can't really blame them for that, unfortunately.

the reality is that madara's communication skills are g-dawful (unless, apparently, he's communicating doomsday prophecies to the teenager trapped in his post-divorce misery cave, and even then he needs to coordinate a different teenager's death to get the message across), and he seems to be the sort of person who assumes that trying to clear things up is entirely pointless. i guess it's like he,,,,, doesn't believe in rhetoric? only overly complicated gambits. gorgias would eat him for breakfast lmao.

anyway, i don't think it's fair to fully blame the uchiha clan for making assumptions when it's very likely that madara just,,,,, didn't tell them a lot. he went to that last pre-konoha battle with hashirama seemingly all by himself (at least in the manga idk about the anime) and no one knows what happened there but him. sure, they might've guessed that izuna gave up his eyes, but we don't know what state izuna was in prior to his death, or if there were any witnesses. it's very possible that it really did look like madara stole them, fucked off to kill the senju, got his ass kicked and surrendered instead, and then tried to pull out of a peace treaty that, as far as they could see, was working out pretty well. we the audience know he want to protect his family (note however that we know this thanks to hashirama who was both biased to begin with and also very intentionally framing his story to be more sympathetic to madara than, say, tobirama's version would've been), but unless he made those feelings clear to his clan (he almost certainly didn't), then they wouldn't necessarily have a reason to believe in him.

moving onto the image, madara doesn't obito unfriendzoning him as betrayal bc he has this extremely weird,,,,, kinda double view of him? not really sure how to phrase that. to madara, obito is both another him (therefore trustworthy, therefore unnecessary to consider a comrade bc. that's just him) and also like. the closest thing to a friend he actually has. which is seven billion different levels of pathetic. ofc obito rejects first the latter and later the former bc. he does not particularly like madara all that much (can't imagine why. kids these days just don't appreciate getting new bits grafted onto them while their worldview crumbles to ash around them like they used to smh). however, madara mostly seems amused by obito's declaration i think bc as far as he's concerned it's nonsense. madara has never for a second considered that he won't personally be gobbling up that tasty tasty ten tails and getting that sweet sweet six paths power. he believes in it so absolutely that the suggestion that it won't be what happens is just. like a joke. of course it will. it's his. what are you talking about.

hell, after he says he'll let obito decide what's next, he.... kinda sticks to the background for the rest of the volume. i'm not kidding; that scene is pretty much smack in the middle of the volume and madara only has a handful lines that aren't "...." or "....!" for the rest of the whole damn thing. most of what he does say is internal or seems to just be him talking aloud to himself. out of what little dialogue he has for the rest of the book, he only has one line that's clearly him talking to obito, and it's this:

・・・！！焦るな・・・！それでは��尾が傷つく上お前も・・・ "...!! don't be impatient...! then not only will the ten tails be wounded, but you also..."

in his own extremely fucked up way, madara does care about obito. i don't think it's like. healthy for either of them, but he cares.

one pet peeve of mine in founders-era fanfics is when madara's whole,,,, everything is solved by izuna just being there

like maybe this is just me, but i don't think izuna surviving or even coming around to the idea of a truce with the senju would've been enough to keep madara from the path he ended up on.

izuna wasn't the reason he left - he was definitely part of madara's issues, but he wasn't the why. even if izuna had stuck around, and even if that had been enough to keep the uchiha clan from losing their faith in madara, i think he would've still come to realize konoha wasn't what he'd hoped it would be.

best case scenario, i think izuna's survival might've caused madara to stick around a bit longer, but i don't think it would've lasted. honestly, even then, that might've just made the inevitable break-up between madara and hashirama even more agonizing (particularly for izuna)

it's a fun idea to play around with for sure, but frankly i don't think canon!madara could've ever been 'saved' from that path. certainly not if the hidden village system ended up getting set up in the same way.

[iron-sides]

actually im not done complaining abt derap not liking hannah because in what fucking world is that an acceptable or even smart thing to say directly to someones face when you are trying to recruit them. if u didnt want her on the team why not just say that?? but now you just look like yr deliberately sabotaging recruitment efforts like :/ i get that hes playing a character but could that character include fewer WHO RAISED YOU moments my fucking god