#don’t ask me to explain why

[marginal-notes]

Today I learned wonderful new ways to deeply inconvenience the ATLA kids in my fics through the delightfully complex hell of efficient wartime logistics. This time with horses.

Because honestly, in a lot of ways, I assumed that the Fire Nation figured out how to mechanize supply line transport to their front lines, but it makes way more sense that animal transport still holds the key role there.

This means mules and horses and likewise ATLA alternatives everywhere.

This means tons of animal feed and animal shit everywhere; whole groups of animal specialists and vets; constant resupply of new animals to replace injured, diseased, and dead animals. You need supply lines for your damn supply lines.

Have fun, Azula. Army camps stink to high heaven for many reasons, good luck avoiding the rampant diseases that constant rip through the ranks, and mind the judgmental ostrich horses.

[bixels]

Hey, I need some advice. For anyone experienced with kids, how do you deal with young children with hyperactive ADHD. I’m doing well babysitting but I’m afraid of being a pushover and letting these two kids get away with too much, especially when they’re rough-housing.

[wispscribbles]

Just gotta say I’m absolutely delighted you don’t give ghost chiseled ass abs, that man needs all the strength he can get and the meat on his bones feels much more realistic/healthy than him having vanity esc muscles :)

Manifesting your days are well!! <3

Big. Big man. Mountain to climb :)

Hope your days are well, too! Thank you <3

[daydreaming-jessi]

And that’s how Baphomet was born. I have no idea why everyone is posting this, but it reminded me of that joke I made on the first baphomet post, and I’m so happy to see it finally coming to life.

[mmmairon]

Diluc’s pride and joy

Aprilluc day 4 [Horse]

[forgottenflickr]

I already posted before about this (and with this account too..) but seriously, please stop reposting stuff from this blog without crediting the original Flickr uploader in some form. It’s not hard, you can do it in a variety of ways on twitter. I can’t do anything about it, it’s just shitty

[utterdrip]

just sharing a small clip because i thought someone else might enjoy the gloves i got him

[winnie-the-monster]

Me every time I think about how Elain hearing Lucien’s heart beating is canon:

[sea-jello]

hong kong miku,,,

[elizakai]

I found another old drawing🥹

[leclercskiesahead]

The boys 😎

[fawcetttweets]

Sorry if this sounds rude, I don't mean it that way, but now that you found the dsmp fic you were searching for could you perhaps take it of the Fawcett tweets blog?

I'm glad you found the fic and if you need to use the boog this way again please do, it's just that dsmp gives bad vibes to some and this is such a good vibe blog that it's sad?

I don't know how to explain it properly, I have anxiety, sorry :(

Ah, I was a bit worried this would happen.

Warning for bad vibes in this post. I’m not very happy in this one.

This ask was pretty upsetting to get for many reasons, but I won’t get too into it because I don’t want to be rude and I’m afraid I may not be able to say what I want to without it coming across that way.

Though I try to stay positive, this is my blog and I don’t owe you ‘good vibes’. If you aren’t happy with seeing posts about certain topics, there is a way to block those tags. Please do that.

I understand that this wasn’t meant to be rude, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.

[candyheartedchy]

*slides this drawing over* *disappears into the night*

[halseygray]

manic is my favorite halsey album but that can’t be true because my favorite is also iichliwp but there’s no way that’s true either because badlands is like my favorite but then there’s hfk which is also my favorite and then you have H5 and I’m sure that’s gonna be my favorite soooooooo idk what to tell you

[dykedvonte]

people act like wanting to discuss how anya being male would affect the story/the themes erases the actual game from existence, like is gone or somehow cheapened by fans doing what fans do

i think you don't like those (happy) ending baby aus and neither do i but it kind of feels similar where the exploration of possibilites is discouraged entirely or considered disrespectful towards the source material or a sign that the fans don't understand the original message which is such a weird viewpoint to have

especially because i think the game lends itself to these kind of conversations/fan content... bc yeah while it wouldn't be the same if anya was male, but that doesn't mean you can't use a male anya au to criticize the patriarchy/rape culture? it would maybe help some people to look deeper into an au like that especially bc it would require THEM to use their brain and maybe confront their own biases

It’s like a ridiculous thing to be so upset about in my mind because it comes from a place I keep seeing in this particular fan space of people interpretaing personal views as like canon analysis.

It’s a game that deals with multiple sensitive topics on a lot of different fronts and of course a lot of the fans are going to go about engaging with it in different ways. Too many people are getting mad at others for depicting things in ways they don’t like even if it comes from a place of personal experience with the subject matter or other real life lived experiences.

I don’t like the idea that Anya has to keep the baby but it’s not unheard of that victims end up having to and it’s not evil or missing the point to admit that or explore it through an au. It’s not happy nor do I think it’s a post canon fix it like some are deposited as but from what I’ve seen of them I’ve only gotten ones that are real and upsetting and deal with the stress of having to care for your rapist child. Again, the concept of Jimmy refusing to take responsibility and forcing it on to others even when they shouldn’t have to.

With the idea of male Anya and female Jimmy the conversation of autonomy, patriarchy, sexism, misogyny and rape culture can still very much happen. It is a lot more nuanced and muddied just due to how male victims are addressed, if addressed at all, but to think it disregard the points of the game means you have a shallow understanding of all of the themes at play in tandem. The idea it’d affect his life less completely misses the point he would feel a shame and guilt about being assaulted by a woman but it fostering a child. Many people in real scenarios would assume he’s only saying it wasn’t consensual because he doesn’t want the kid despite discomfort and fear around Jimmy. Theres the idea that Jimmy would guilt him to care for the baby and thus her back on earth which furthers the idea of being stuck with you abuser along with how Anya may be compliant because men who defend themselves are still seen at fault. If everyone’s gender is swapped it opens the discussion of how women can be complacent in n rape culture too.

I think a sign of a good piece of media is if enables transformative conversation on the subject matter. I think the issue people are having is not understanding that there isn’t one right way to act in the scenarios we were given, that victims find themselves in. It’s a lot of people getting upset at others who react differently and acting like putting those opinions out there is damaging when it’s just another real perspective someone is either opening up and sharing or trying to depict.

[fumifooms]

You’re the resident chilchuck expert, so I was wondering about it there’s any canon evidence that he did smoke or drink alcohol when the kids were younger. I always thought it was something he picked up due to the strain of long jobs, when the kids were already older, but you seem to think differently and I was wondering if there was anything in canon that made you think that way!

Now that you mention it I guess it’s true there’s no evidence he did. Smoking we literally only know he does at all because of one post-canon panel where he has a pipe, so no, maybe this stick-looking thing in the panel below too though, I’m not familiar with medieval blunts eh. We’ve only gotten one panel of him and his daughters interacting when he was younger so that’s not too insightful on that end, and every time we see him young and freckled it’s in a job context so again not really where we’d expect him to be drinking. The earliest proof (/heavy implication since we don’t see inside his cup I guess) is 3 years before canon when Laios hired him, where he’s at a bar, classily placed in front of all the bottles ✨

Yes alcohol is almost certainly a way through which he copes especially with stress, so if we go with the theory he started around when work got stressful, well… Chilchuck started working as a dungeon diver ~10 years ago so when he was ~19, making Mei, Fler and Puck ~6 and ~4 respectively, so from that draw the ‘stressful enough to start drinking’ line wherever. We don’t know what he did before that with any certainty, and it could be he did odd jobs, lived off mostly mutual aid and community work, or just focused on only raising the girls. Half-foots tend to be poor and I see a lot of that in Chilchuck specifically so I don’t think he could have afforded to not have some paying work though.

Alright, so then why do I think he did drink when the girls were younger?

I give a more complete rundown of the info we do have on his alcoholism & his family with panels and references + all the speculation I make from it here. But the most targeted and objective answer I can give is:

Of course there’s just very very little we know of Chilchuck’s life with his family, and I think that’s by design too. I think the details being up in the air is to allow more nuance of the topic, like, will trying to reconcile go well, is their relationship salvageable? We don’t know, because we don’t know. So the message of giving hope a chance even if it’s a long shot, that things could truly go either way, is more relevant, impactful and meta in that way. How long was he usually away for work travels into dungeons here and there? How did he act with them? All we can really do is "it’s likely that", it’s a game of which way we think it’s more implied. There’s no right and wrong answer, it’s all Marcille-like larping the events out.

My main reason for thinking he did is that his father died from overdrinking and Chilchuck is very aware of that. He mentions his death casually in the extra about their stance in alcohol and in his Adventurer’s Bible profile, etc. He acts towards the alcohol presumably the same way his father did: with abandon, uncaring for the health effects, probably happily too considering Chil says "dying doing something you love is a good way to go". Very nonchalant. So you see what I’m saying here right, wether he started early or late, his view of alcoholism is very influenced by what he saw of his father growing up, it’s something he’s always been aware of and saw in a mostly positive light, something that was inherited you could say. It’s something that was normalized to him from a young age. Regardless or where it goes from there I do think this part is pretty inarguable. If he views it positively and we know that in the present alcohol is his favorite food that he loveees, why would he have held out on it? Personally that all makes me think he started drinking very young, especially since I don’t think they limited alcohol to age as much as modern standards (and I mean, teen drinking is obviously still a thing). And here you could argue, maybe his father only started being more alcoholic later when Chilchuck moved out, or something! And to that there’s nothing I can say except I think that’s a strained theory, and that Chil might even have largely cut contact with his family after moving out (since he and siblings are listed as almost strangers and he doesn’t seem to have much emotional attachment to his parents, but also we know he rents out his place to "a relative"), but it’s true we have no evidence. "I’ve picked up the same unhealthy substance abuse as my father haha! No big deal right haha" repeated several times to me just reeks of intergenerational trauma, & the alcoholism gene as they call it. Like effortless sliding into drinking as if it’s second nature, it’s natural after all, it’s normal after all, it just makes sense, it makes you feel good and that’s what matters.

BUT from my interpretation then we have a whole other layer: Alcohol is of course not all bad always. I think he’s always liked alcohol and drank it on occasion and it brought him joy etc etc, but I think here the implication in the question is, how much effect did his drinking have on the family relations and how early? And that isn’t so much about when him drinking started but when the alcoholism started. Addiction is defined by a habitual need, that has negative effects from filling that need (physical, psychological, social, etc) and negative effects from withdrawal. If Chilchuck drinks to cope and he can’t not cope without it, that’s addiction, if it affects his relationships, if it’s a need he has, it’s addiction. Addiction can be very insidious or look very casual, and how much people around the person are affected by it is case by case. Cheerful drunks can be sooo annoying and uncomfortable though let me tell you. Drunks are drunks. And this sounds harsh, but even if people around them don’t mind drunks it’ll still have some effects here and there, living with one can be such a challenge, ily drunks good luck with everything much like Chilchuck you deserve good things 🫡　

Ok so with the dad thing and the "ok well maybe he’s always drunk casually but it grew worse with time around when he started working as a dungeon diver" precision made, the other bit of info we have that can inform this is that Chilchuck is on a harsh diet and that alcohol is a hunger suppressant. We know Chilchuck "used to be fine not eating for two days", that literally on screen to quench his hunger so it doesn’t keep him awake he goes to drink water, drinking is his instinct to hunger. Again alcohol is a hunger suppressant and if you want info on that the internet has a lot of research and anecdotes about it. He diets to be light enough to not trigger traps, so it’s something he’d have started after dungeon diving most likely. Between the stress and the diet, yes it’s extremely likely he started going harder on alcohol after he started working in dungeons. There’s arguments on wether two days without eating is less bad for half-foots than humans, but apart from smaller portions there’s nothing that indicates half-foots should get less than 3 meals a day. They need less food but that’s because their bodies are smaller: the need is proportional to the body, not smaller than others’ races, the % of need is similar even if the kg amount of food isn’t. There’s also a popular headcanon with support basis that half-foots run hot and have a faster heartrate and whatnot, and that points towards a faster metabolism rather than a slower one: a bigger need for eating rather than a smaller one. He has the same bmi, 18, as Mickbell, but perhaps because Chil is much taller he’s less intensely visibly underweight with ribs showing than Mick during the bath extra, it’s most apparent when he becomes tallman.

Alcohol is something so important and omnipresent in his character that I have trouble believing it’s something that was part of only a small fraction of his life. It’s his immediate go-to, his no-brainer solution to a good time, I’ve sort of always assumed especially after looking at his family that it’s something he discovered decently young. Like he just acts like someone who’s always had alcohol to fall back on and started young idk. Alcohol is one of his 5 keywords. Alcoholism is very ingrained into his world view and life, his "it doesn’t matter" stance his ‘work hard play hard’ mentality his idea that the world is harsh so you get relief where you can, so it just makes sense to me that it’s always been in his life, if not actively then at least looming.

So yes, in summary, my take: Alcohol was always something he wholly enjoyed to an unwise level, but it could have been considered casual until he started working into dungeons and his need for it on a regular basis intensified. Alcohol has always had positive association to him as far as we see, so when it started being a problem he didn’t see it as such. To quote him, "I drink anytime I get the opportunity to". Why always? Approval of father’s alcoholism. Why alcoholism at all? Diet + stress & coping mechanism & emotional stunting + relationship issues, and she decided she had enough after they went out for drinks.

Conclusion

Chilchuck having drunk from a young age makes sense to me and it’s the strongest narrative angle I see on the table, but that’s objectively a me opinion, yes! There’s no evidence, moreso there’s canon basis and supporting info, but it’s all very left up to interpretation. I’ve made my own interpretations of things from the scraps we see, like everyone else making Chilwife and daughters content. Wether you have a stance on the topic or prefer to leave it vague in your takes, it’ll be a matter of what you think makes most sense, or what you’d rather believe I suppose (which is literally fine)

There’s a lot of subjectivity in even just setting up causal links like you probably noticed during this and I was careful with my word choices, because we’re just extrapolating from what we see and unless Kui states it explicitly from a reliable mouth all we can do is have informed opinions on most things. This particular interpretation is influenced by other details I’ve come to form about my interpretation of Chilchuck too, the more psychological and emotional sides of him and the timeline and how his marriage even happened, unplanned pregnancy imo. Like I hope you see what I mean, this wasn’t supposed to be a speculation post just a quick simple answer but there’s sort of just no other and concise but complete way with the subjectivity nuance to put "maybe it could be yes because of this but maybe it could be no because of this" haha

Edit: Wait the phrasing on this… Interesting. "In recent years"— This does imply that if not just his alcohol consumption increasing then the diversity and quality of it did, so either he indeed did start drinking more (not necessarily meaning he didn’t drink before) assumedly because of his wife leaving, or he started drinking other/more different kinds of alcohol maybe due to the union he formed + his experience gave him greater salary than he had previously (and no wife and family to provide money for), a mix of both perhaps.