#elemental forces

[cacartoon]

Salt 🧂

[falcontheartist]

Well it’s time folks!! The first ever Fanart Friday’s here!!! Let’s go through what we got!!

Starting off we have a new character from an up and coming show called “Knights of Guinevere”!!

Next we got an absolute icon from “Tiger and Bunny”, Nathan Seymour!!

Next we got this sweetheart from @cacartoon ‘s “Elemental Forces”, Sodium!!

We also have my darling, @saturnnutcracker ‘s boi, Ivan Drosselmyer!!

Last but certainly not least, we have Mimi from the audio dramam “Tales of Annualia”!! (The link won’t work but if you search it on youtube you’ll find it!! Please check it out and give it some love!!)

Well, that’s it for Fanart Friday, I hope you enjoyed!!

[wickedzeevyln]

Apple Seed

The fox appeared first as a flicker of movement beneath the brambles. Old twigs beneath his legs snapped and the grass snipped as he skittered from view. Its coat now hung in matted clumps, the gray of concrete sludge. Patches of fur stuck out at impossible angles, crusted with swathes of dried mud, decaying leaves, and what might have been week-old carrion. It stepped lightly into the clearing,…

[rosemariecawkwell]

Review: Elemental Forces - Horror Short Stories, Edited by Mark Morris

Product format: HardbackPrice: US$26.95; £20.00;ISBN: 978 1 78758 867 7Extent: 304 pp Description Elemental Forces is the fifth volume in the non-themed horror series of original stories, showcasing the very best short fiction that the genre has to offer, and edited by Mark Morris. This new anthology contains 20 original horror stories, 16 of which havebeen commissioned from some of the top…

[antidiluvianobservatory]

May I present the elemental forces of nature from Kingdom Of Loathing to those not aware of them?

It will always be funny to me to have "the elemental plane of X", where X is absolutely not an element. Like "The elemental plane of bunny" from my magical-magician-post.

Because sure, I can imagine the idea that there's worlds that are just full of fire/water/air/earth, and this is somehow Natural and Vital to the continued existence of the world. Why not? The universe/multiverse might as well work that way.

But the idea that there's an entire dimension that's just the platonic ideal of CHEESE? Hilarious. S tier worldbuilding. More. Tell me about the inhabitants of the Elemental Plane of Swords. Hell*, get weird with it. Who says it had to be nouns for objects?

What's going on in the Elemental Plane of Treachery? The Elemental Plane of Chicago. The Elemental Plane of Language. The Elemental Plane of Next Thursday. The Elemental Plane of Yearning.

And if you can explain how any of these are needed to keep the world spinning, all the better.

I meant that metaphorically but for all I know, in your setting the reason the world spins is because of an open rift to the Elemental Plane of Rotation.

* better known as the Elemental Plane of Punishment, of course.

[ssnapdragoon]

[bigfatbreak]

Question about your changling AU, where did you learn about the ins and outs of Fae and Changling myths? I'm interested in learning too but not sure where to start lol

some of the lore I have for the AU I crafted myself, otherwise I read a lot of old faerie tales growing up and my mom, for some reason, knows an awful lot about shit like that, so some of it is just innate from her. otherwise i just read a lotttttt of books around the concepts of these things when I was younger because I was fascinated with jim henson's worlds

[maskerat]

Family Dinner

wanted to use this artwork to showcase my skills -> I have ko-fi commissions open if you're interested in my art!

[borkthemork]

I don't think we talk enough about how silly and affection-starved Kirigiri is in Trigger Happy Havoc regarding romantic attraction. Remember that the kids only spent almost a month in the school during the Killing Game. You can't even interact with her FTEs after Chapter 3, so the moment Naegi showed he wanted to put the work into actively knowing her, she's already down bad, and joking about wanting his hand in marriage after just weeks of meeting.

And in School Mode, she indirectly confirms that she wasn't fully joking about the idea too! She's out of her fucking depth with her crush, trying to indirectly ask him out through a partnership deal while on one metaphorical knee, and is trying so hard not to show she wants him so so badly

[disastardly]

For the five of us on this site that care this specifically about Mystic Force, here are some hi-res pics of their wizard uniforms, courtesy of the Power Rangers prop auction currently going on.

[taradactyls]

So I could be totally wrong but, I believe it was sort of expected that men/gentlemen lose their virginity before marriage in regency times. But I also there’s some fandom ‘debate’ about whether or not Mr Darcy would’ve had sex before getting married. So I was just curious about what your canon for Mr Darcy in T3W is. Is he a virgin or not?

I knew someone would ask me this eventually, haha. I've actually had really long conversations with my beta reader about this trying to figure it out. It sounds like this might all be stuff that you’ve already seen discussed in the fandom, but I’ve never thought about it deeply before and so these are new thoughts to me.

I keep going over the historical real-world likelihood, the authorial intent, and the text itself but I’m still not 100%. I’ll explain my thinking and what I find most likely, but here’s your warning that it’s not a clear cut yes/no.

Because on one hand, at that time period it was most common for men in his position to have seen sex workers or have casual encounters/mistresses with women from their estates. Though I do absolutely believe not all men did that, no matter how much wealth and power they had. To go back some centuries, William the Conqueror seemed to be famously celibate (no hints of male lovers either according to the biography I read) until his marriage, and there's no evidence of affairs after it either. The best guesses as to why are that it was due to his religious devotion and the problems that had arisen from himself being a bastard and not wanting to recreate that situation. Concerns over religion and illegitimate children would certainly still have been applicable in the regency to men who thought that way. And in modern times I've seen sex workers say that when an 18/21yo is booked in by his family/friends to 'become a man' often they end up just talking and agree to lie about the encounter. After all, it’s not like every man wants casual sex, even if they aren’t demisexual or something in that vein. But, statistically speaking, the precedent of regency gentlemen would make Darcy not a virgin.

On the other hand, just how aware was Jane Austen, the very religious daughter of a country rector, of the commonness of this? There’s a huge difference between knowing affairs and sex workers existed (and no one who had seen a Georgian newspaper could be blind to this) and realising that the majority of wealthy men saw sex workers at some point even if they condemned the more public and profligate affairs. The literature for young ladies at the time paints extramarital sex - including the lust of men outside of marriage - as pretty universally bad and dangerous. This message is seen from 'Pamela' and other gothic fiction to non-fiction conduct books which Jane Austen would have encountered. Here's something I found in 'Letters to a Young Lady' by the reverend John Bennett which I found particularly interesting as it's in direct conversation with other opinions of the era:

"A reformed rake makes the best husband." Does he? It would be very extraordinary, if he should. Besides, are you very certain, that you have power to reform him? It is a matter, that requires some deliberation. This reformation, if it is to be accomplished, must take place before marriage. Then if ever, is the period of your power. But how will you be assured that he is reformed? If he appears so, is he not insidiously concealing his vices, to gain your affections? And when he knows, they are secured, may he not, gradually, throw off the mask, and be dissipated, as before? Profligacy of this kind is seldom eradicated. It resembles some cutaneous disorders, which appear to be healed, and yet are, continually, making themselves visible by fresh eruptions. A man, who has carried on a criminal intercourse with immoral women is not to be trusted, His opinion of all females is an insult to their delicacy. His attachment is to sex alone, under particular modifications.

The definition of a rake is more than a man who has seen a sex worker once, it's about appearance and general conduct too, but again, would that distinction be made to young ladies? Because they seem to simply be continuously taught 'lust when unmarried is bad and beware men who you know engage in extramarital sex.' As a side note, Jane Austen certainly knew at least something about the mechanics of sex: her letters and literature she read alludes to it, and she grew up around farm animals in the countryside which is an education in itself.

We can also see from this exert that the school of thought seems to be 'reformed rake' vs 'never a rake' in contention for the title of best husband, there's no debate over whether a current rake is unsuitable for a young lady. And, from Willoughby to Wickham to Crawford, I think we have a very clear idea of Jane Austen's ideas of how likely it is notably promiscuous men can reform. This does not preclude the possibility that her disparaging commentary around their lust is based more on over-indulgence or the class of women they seduce, but it's undoubtedly a condemnation of such men directly in line with the first part of what John Bennett says so it's no stretch to believe she saw merit in the follow-on conclusions of the second part as well. Whether she would view it with enough merit to consider celibacy the only respectable option for unmarried men is a bit unclearer.

I did consider that perhaps Jane Austen consciously treated this as a grey area where she couldn’t possibly know what young men did (the same reasoning is why we never see the men in the dining room after the ladies retire, etc) and so didn't hold an opinion on men's extramarital encounters with sex workers/lower-class women at all, but I think there actually are enough hints in her works that this isn’t the case. Though, unsurprisingly, given the delicacy of the subject, there’s no direct mention of sex workers or gentlemen having casual lovers from among the lower-classes in her texts.

That also prevents us from definitively knowing whether she thought extramarital sex was so common, and as unremarkable, as most gentlemen treated it. But we do see from her commentary around the consequences of Maria Bertram and Henry Crawford's elopement that she had criticism of the double standards men and women were held to when violating sexual virtue. Another indication that she perhaps expected good men to be capable of waiting until marriage in the way that she very clearly believed women should. At the very least, a man who often indulges in extramarital sex does not seem to be one who would be considered highly by Jane Austen.

She makes a point of saying, in regards to not liking his wife, that Mr Bennet “was not of a disposition to seek comfort for the disappointment which his own imprudence had brought on, in any of those pleasures which too often console the unfortunate for their folly or their vice.” This must include affairs, though cheating on a wife cannot be a 1:1 equivalent of single young men sleeping around before marriage. However, the latter is generally critically accepted to be one of the flaws that Darcy lays at Wickham’s door along with gambling when talking about their youth and his “vicious propensities" and "want of principle." Though this could be argued that it’s more the extent or publicity of it (but remembering that it couldn't be anything uncommon enough that it couldn't be hidden from Darcy Sr. or explained away) rather than the act itself, or maybe seductions instead of paying women offering those services. I also believe Persuasion mentioning Sunday travelling as proof of thoughtless/immoral activity supports the idea that Jane Austen might have been religious enough that she would never create a hero who had extramarital sex.

So, taken all together this would make Darcy potentially a virgin, or, since I couldn't find absolute evidence of her opinions, leave enough room that he isn’t but extramarital sex isn’t a regular (or perhaps recent) thing and he would never have had anything so established as a mistress.

I’ve also been wondering, if Darcy isn’t a virgin, who would he have slept with? I’ve been musing on arguments for and against each option for weeks at this point. No romantasy has ever made me think about a fictional man's sexual habits so much as the question of Darcy's sexual history. What is my life.

Sex workers are an obvious answer, and the visits wouldn’t have raised any eyebrows. Discretion was part of their job, it was a clean transaction with no further responsibilities towards them, and effective (and reusable, ew) condoms existed at this time so there was little risk of children and no ability to exactly determine the paternity even if there was an accident. It was a fairly ‘responsible’ choice if one wanted no strings attached. In opposition to this, syphilis was rampant at the time, and had been known to spread sexually for centuries. Sex workers were at greater risk of it than anyone else and so the more sensible and risk-averse someone is (and I think Mr Darcy would be careful) the less likely they would be to visit sex workers. Contracting something that was known as potentially deadly and capable of making a future wife infertile if it spread to her could make any intelligent and cautious man think twice.

Servants and tenants of the estate are another simple and common answer. Less risk of stds, it can be based on actual attraction more than money (though money might still change hands), and is a bit more intimate. But Wickham’s called wicked for something very similar, when he dallies (whether he only got to serious flirting, kissing, or sleeping with them I don’t think we can conclusively say) with the common women of Meryton: “his intrigues, all honoured with the title of seduction, had been extended into every tradesman's family.” And it isn't as though Wickham had any personal duty towards those people beyond the claims of basic dignity. Darcy, who is shown to have such respect and understanding for his responsibilities towards the people of his estate and duties of a landlord, would keenly feel if any of his actions were leading his servants/tenants astray and down immoral paths. Servants, especially, were considered directly under the protection of the family whose house they worked in. I think it's undoubtable that Mrs Reynolds (whose was responsible for the wellbeing - both physically and spiritually - of the female servants) would not think so well of Mr Darcy if he had experimented with maids in his youth. It would reflect badly on her if a family entrusted their daughter to her care and she 'lost her virtue' under her watch. Daughters/widows of others living on the estate not under the roof of Pemberley House are a little more likely, but still, if he did have an affair with any of them I can only think it possible when he was much younger and did not feel his duties quite so strongly. Of course lots of real men didn't care about any of this, but Darcy is so far from being depicted as careless about his duties that the narrative makes a point of how exceptional his quality of care was. Frankly, it's undeniable that none of Jane Austen's heroes were flippant about their responsibilities towards those under their protection. I cannot serious entertain an interpretation that makes Darcy not, at his current age, at least, cognizant of the contemporary problems inherent in sleeping with servants or others on his estate.

A servant in a friend’s house would remove some of that personal responsibility, but transfer it to instead be leading his friend’s servants astray and in a manner which he is less able to know about if a child did result. That latter remains a problem even if we move the setting to his college, so not particularly likely for his character as we know it… though it wouldn’t be unusual for someone to be more unthinking and reckless in their teenage years than they are at twenty-eight so I don’t think having sex then can be ruled out. Kissing I can much more easily believe, especially when at Oxford or Cambridge, but every scenario of sleeping with a lower-class woman has some compelling arguments against it especially the closer we get to the time of the novel.

Men did of course also have affairs with women of ranks similar to their own, though given Jane Austen’s well-known feelings towards men who ‘ruined’ the virtue of young ladies we can safely say that Darcy never slept with an unwed middle- or upper-class woman. Any decent man would have married them out of duty if it got so far; but if he was the sort to let it get so far, I think it impossible Jane Austen would consider him respectable. Widows are a possibility, but again, the respectable thing to do would be to marry them. Perhaps a poorer merchant’s widow would be low enough that marriage is off the table but high enough that the ‘leading astray’ aspect loses its master-servant responsibilities (though the male-female ‘protect the gentler sex’ aspect remains) but his social circle didn’t facilitate meeting many ladies like that. Plus, an affair with a woman in society would remove many layers of privacy and anonymity that sex-workers and lower-class lovers provided by simply being unremarkable to the world at large. It carries a far greater risk of scandal and a heavier sense of immorality in the terms of respecting a woman’s purity which classism prevented from applying so heavily to lower-class women.

I think it’s important to note here that something that removes the need to think about duties of landlords towards the lower-classes or gentlemen towards gentlewomen is having affairs with other men of a similar rank. But, aside from the risk of scandal and what could be called the irresponsibility of engaging in illegal acts, it’s almost certain that Jane Austen would never have supported this. For a devout author in this era the way I’m calculating likelihoods makes it not even a possibility. But if you want to write a different fanfiction (and perhaps something like a break-up could explain why Darcy doesn’t seem to have any closer friend than someone whom he must have only met two or so years ago despite being in society for years before that) it does have that advantage over affairs with women of equal- and lower-classes. I support alternate interpretations entirely – it just isn’t how I’m deciding things in this instance.

I keep coming back to the conclusion that, at the very least, Darcy hasn’t had sex recently and it was never a common occurrence. It wouldn’t surprise me if Jane Austen felt he hadn’t done it ever. Kissing, as we can see from all the parlour games at the time, wasn’t viewed as harshly, so I think he’s likely made out with someone before. But in almost every situation it does seem that the responsible and religious thing to do (which Jane Austen values so highly) is for it to never have progressed to sex. I also don’t think it conflicts with his canon characterisation to say that he wouldn’t regard sexual experience as a crucial element of his life thus far, and his personality isn’t driven to pursue pleasure for himself, so it’s entirely possible that he would never go out of his way to seek it. So, I’m inclined to think that the authorial and textual evidence is in favour of Darcy being a virgin even if the real-world contemporary standard is the opposite. (Though both leave enough room for exceptions that I’m not going to argue with anyone who feels differently; and even if you agree with all my points, you might simply weight authorial intent/textual evidence/contemporary likelihoods differently than I do and come to a different conclusion).

Remember that even if Darcy is a virgin this wouldn’t necessarily equate to lack of knowledge, only experience. There were plenty of books and artwork focused on sex, and Darcy, studious man that he is, would no doubt pay attention to what knowledge his friends/male relatives shared. Though some of it (Looking especially at you, 'Fanny Hill, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure') should NEVER be an example of appropriate practice for taking a woman's virginity. Darcy would almost certainly have been taught directly or learnt through exposure to other men talking to make sex good for a woman – it was a commonly held misconception (since Elizabethan England, I believe) that women had to orgasm to conceive. It would be in his interests as an empathetic husband, and head of a family, to know how to please his wife.

Basically, I’m convinced Darcy isn’t very experienced, if at all, and will be learning with Elizabeth. But he does have a lot of theoretical knowledge which he’s paid careful attention to and is eager to apply.

[cacartoon]

I was working on an introduction mini comic for something I’m gonna do and I just wanna acknowledge just how small my element soldiers are

Look at Hydrogen compared to literal humans

TINY

[discarded-replica]

Seeing people blame dumb elements on Dragons Rising is so funny when the first few elements we were introduced to included Mind and Gravity and Sound and Speed which are very clearly Not Elements

[multifandomangel]

sometimes i wish i could be normal but i would be SO BORING if i didn’t hyper-fixate on animated media

[imharnaannesta]

Today on 1am Star Wars thoughts, I have a gripe about the fandom’s gripes about Padme’s blue nightgowns.

Every time I see someone talking about them it feels like it’s always based on the assumption that we’re meant to believe that this is her normal sleepwear. That we’re meant to accept the premise of a woman sleeping with styled hair and a full face of makeup and a dress with strands of pearls on it as normal, everyday behavior.

But the thing is, I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. (I mean, maybe George thinks like that but there’s a whole team of people behind every costume you see on screen and the director is not the only one with input)

Because the thing is we’ve seen other instances of Padme’s sleepwear.

Twice in Attack of the Clones we get glimpses of her sleepwear but the scene where we get the best look is at the lake house where she is wearing a pretty but fairly normal looking nightgown with a dark blue robe over it. By the time the blue nightgowns come in we’ve already seen her in normal sleepwear. So… what changes between then and when the blue nightgowns appear?

She gets married and her husband goes to war.

I don’t think we’re meant to assume that she’s just suddenly in the last couple years developed a taste for extremely uncomfortable sleepwear. I don’t think those nightgowns are really sleepwear. Padme may fall asleep in them but she’s not putting them on to sleep, she’s putting them on to spend a rare night with her husband who is back from deployment.

It’s “welcome home” lingerie.

It’s quite conservative, this is technically meant to be a family friendly movie and besides they’re dealing with the logistics of Padme’s pregnancy so baring her midriff or back probably weren’t really options and they’d pretty solidly established a language for Padme’s costuming that doesn’t involve cleavage. But I think from an adult perspective we’re supposed to recognize that the married couple who have conceived a child are having sex. And are meant to be able to add up the facts provided and recognize that a young couple spending long stretches of time apart are may be spending the time they have together engaging in activities that sometimes result in Padme falling asleep in sexy, uncomfortable nightwear rather than changing into something more comfortable.

Anyway, that’s my personal opinion/headcanon. Padme does have comfortable nightgowns, we’ve seen them, she’s breaking out the space lingerie because her husband has been away and she’s missed him and she wants to enjoy their alone time before they have kids and that time gets even more limited.

[spacetimeaccordionfolder]

"The soul is subject to the mind and my mind is my strongest weapon" and yeah we knew that the soul could be shaped by the mind slowly already thanks to exposition in arc 1 chapter 8 and that seemed feasible - makes sense that the mind can shape the soul- but then today's page! Erin reshaped his soul! And yeah we knew that from arc 2 chapter 2 but! Not just malformed, unusually high capacity soul channels that needed some shaping and sealing so he didn't have headaches always but like. He opened his own soul. He moved the channels. WHAT?? okay yeah I can see why he's "my mind can do anything I can handle all this" guy his mind literally reshaped his soul. "No one has mapped the Storm of Magic because I haven't tried yet" guy made his own miniature maelstorm as a teen no wonder he was so confident he could navigate the Storm.

I'm having a low ache everywhere, high pain in a few areas, pain day and Erin is feeling even more relatable than usual. He can feel his channels opening, so he'll be able to properly channel and not have chronic headaches or however his malformed soul links affected him- he's been there for months and is so close. So close to a solution and is told to wait. Of course he immediately overstretches his abilities and injures himself again. His smile in panel 7 feels like that of someone finally able to do something they haven't done in a long time, he's marveling in what he can do, of pushing through whatever pain or difficulty is there and being- and then there's the consequences of that.

I just. He.

okay I don't have a good ending to this post Erin's just neat