#human chess pieces

[kennedyvietor1978blog]

[notbecauseofvictories]

Watching this again, it becomes incredibly clear in s3 that Nate is teaching Parker how to run her own crew. He fully anticipates that she will be his legacy, and more than anyone else---more than Sophie or Hardison, more than Eliot (though I would argue that Eliot never even slightly wanted it)---he is teaching her how to take over, think like he thinks and plan like he plans. He fumbles some of the emotional stuff, never actually tells her explicitly...but by the time you reach s3 he's clearly all-in. He's decided. Parker is going to be Nate 2.0, with different more exciting bugs than the 1.0 version.

[tinseltina]

trying to make fanart of leona from @kiame-sama's humans are extinct twst au (warning it is a yandere au and 18+ so minors DNI)

[quillpokebiology]

Any Pawniard facts? I would like to own one, so what advice do you have for me to start?

Pawniard Facts

-The scientific name for Pawniard is "similus acutis" which roughly translates to "Sharpened Similar"

-Pawniard live in packs on rocky mountains or badlands, with numbers ranging between 10-30. They're most often led by a Bisharp, and when one evolves, they'll find lone Pawniard of their own to form a pack. Sometimes, female Bisharp will form small packs with their children if they have any

-Because of this dynamic, Pawniard only evolve if something happens to their Bisharp or there are no other Bisharp evolve

-Each Pawniard pack has their own dynamics and cultures. When caught, it can be hard for Pawniard to adjust to Pawniard's of other groups, but it can happen

-Pawniard sharpen their claws by rubbing them on sharp stones. Getting a scratching post for them is advised

-Biologically, Pawniard are omnivores, but in practice, they mostly eat meat. They eat larger prey that they take down with their pack, and their prey can consist of pretty much anything

-Pawniard are very smart pokemon and are capable of using wood and stone to craft various items

-Because of their pack mentality, Pawniard are very clingy pokemon when it comes to their trainers. While they don't show much physical affection (they literally have blades all over their bodies), they show affection by giving food and following you around. Be weary though, because the food they give you can range from berries to a dead dedenne

(Art by matazo)

-When freshly hatched, Pawniard have very soft metals that are sensitive to heat. The other Pawniard will protect them by keeping the young Pawniards in caves or in shade

-When looking for mates, Pawniard will sometimes leave the packs; either to prevent inbreeding or because there's no one in the pack they like. It can be difficult since their mates often come from different packs, so one has to choose to leave the pack to join another, but the new pack might not accept them or their mate. When this happens, the two Pawniard will make their own pack, usually with only one evolving into Bisharp but sometimes, both will evolve. It can be even more dangerous if a Pawniard chooses to court a pokemon of another species as there's a higher chance that they won't be accepted. But, they are accepted sometimes (I once saw a Pawniard pack that included an Illumise, I bet it was a situation like that)

-Pawniards mark their territory by leaving markings on rocks or trees. Each pack has a different marking symbol

-I've been calling them packs the entire time, but a group of Pawniard can be called a board

-Pawniard don't like the Tinkatink like at all as all members of the line attack them for their metals. This hatred runs so deep that pawniard packs will murk any Tinkatink they see, even if they leave them alone

-Bisharp make their homes in caves or at the bottom of large trees. They'll make separate rooms for eating and sleeping

-Despite Galar having a lost history of trying to keep pokemon away from their settlements, Pawniard were viewed highly because of their pack mindset and their unquestionable loyalty to their leader. While many commoners disliked them, as they had dangerous blades and would scratch settlements, Galarian knights were known to have a few Pawniards train amongst them

If your curious, here are some Bisharp facts!

[thefigureresource]

Alice Liddell : Yume iri no Jikan [original illustration by STAR Kageboushi] 1/7 scale from APEX coming January 2025.

[recent-rose]

yknow defaulting to "well akutagawa abused kyouka so hes just as bad!!!1" whenever somebody brings up the fact that dazai is a canonically unapologetic abuser is really not the move especially considering akutagawa actually cares about kyouka's happiness. akutagawa took what he learned from dazai, extrapolated on his own desperate wish to please/impress dazai, and assumed that was what kyouka would want from him. to be acknowledged for her strength alone. obviously this is not what she wanted (nor is it what any well-adjusted person would want), but he was literally trying to give her the happiness he did not get from dazai. he abused kyouka because he had literally no other authority figure from which to derive guidance. and in the end he STILL managed to break the cycle of abuse that dazai benefits from to this day. he told kyouka he was happy FOR her. and he was sincere. he showed her, and felt for her, true empathy. they finally understood one another, even if just for that moment. that is where he succeeds dazai, and it is HIS OWN success. dazai had fuck all to do with it besides making it harder for akutagawa to reach that conclusion in the first place. he's also actively making it harder for akutagawa to recover from the abuse he sufferered at dazai's hands by, yknow, lingering in his life like a bad cold. he never just leaves akutagawa be. he's always waiting in the wings to continue using him. compare that to akutagawa leaving kyouka's life entirely after reconciling with her decision to leave and coming to understand the depths of the abuse he visited upon her when she was his mentee. like. god.

[zhongrin]

I’ve been standing on the Geo Dragon Sovereign Zhongli hill ever since I saw your post a few months ago. You have an ally in me 🤧💪 There’s no way Mr. Zhongli isn’t playing 4d chess with Celestia atp

right? right?? hoyo is cooking and we can smell it!!!! all hail geo dragon sovereign zhongli 🐉 🛐

ALSO ALSO ALSO. i just remembered. i talked about this with my brother last weekend after watching the newest yummy and iconic hoyofair...

i'll skip to the point bc that was a 9 hours call in total lmao but in summary, he is in the 'zhongli might become our enemy at the end game' camp orz his speculation is that he has a contract with celestia which prevents him from speaking about it and it'll force him to side with celestia when it comes down to war and such. personally i don't think (or want to believe that) that's what's happening but i'm dying from the angst potential so now yall must think about it too /evil /silly

[just-another-obsessed-fangirl]

2 am and my npmd rotted brain is even more incoherent than usual but like... max explicitly saying that he views grace as "forbidden fruit", and while not said out loud, that is clearly also how grace views max... in christian doctrine, adam and eve ate the forbidden fruit and became sinful and unintentionally doomed the rest of humanity with original sin... grace having sex with max, tasting her forbidden fruit and becoming sinful and taking it upon herself to doom the rest of sinful humanity (well, dirty dudes, but she clearly doesn't have extreme qualifications for who could deserve that title)

[evilpol]

Like many people I've been lost in the Veilguard hole so please look at my Rook

Gallus Mercar, mage, who unintentionally ended up sharing his first name with Neve's last name because I'm stupid and I didn't even think of it cuz I didn't remember the companions' names gdhdhd

[impossible-rat-babies]

I love videos essays bc it’s like. huh I had feelings on that but thank you for putting it into deeper words and coherent feelings

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Sorry hold on. Akechi and Ren were pitted against each other intentionally by an evil god? Oh so Akechi was set up to go down the absolute worst path possible, and Ren was given hope for change only to then tear it away from him. Cool. Coolcoolcool

[korrasamibottles]

That different people can engage with the same piece of media and come out of it with wildly different interpretations is a testament to the evolutionary miracle that is the human brain. It is also very annoying.

[torgawl]

can we talk about sukuna and rika and why the king and queen of curses having a dispute is also narratively fitting? if sukuna is an heian era sorcerer with an antipathy and disregard of human emotions and the weak's will to live, blind to love and unable to comprehend the value of relationships with others then rika, as his counterpart, works especially well. rika is just a kid, or was just a kid. an innocent young girl who ended up dying tragically and saw herself transform into a vengeful spirit after being cursed by love. not only does she represent the weak (remember when sukuna's slaughter of women and children was implied?), she represents love itself. with her feelings lingering after death, she clinged onto her existence with the sole wish of protecting yuuta. it counteracts so well with sukuna's selfish will to kill time before his final breathe, which he admitted to be his will and motivation.

before i move on to my next idea, which let me preface by saying that it might be a little out there and dives into theory territory, i'm going to contextualise it with some information on the symbolism of "king and queen" that might help understand why this thought may make - at least some - sense.

in alchemy the king usually appears in conjunction with the queen, representing the sun-and-moon duality. in accordance with the theory of sulfur and mercury, which together, after alchemist purification, form the philosopher’s stone (also called the elixir of life, associated with rejuvenation and immortality), usually represented by the crowned hermetic androgyne (the union of the complementary male and female, achieving perfection or completion in the human state). according to jung, the king and queen also signify the spiritual conjunction that takes place when the process of individuation is complete, with the harmonious union of the unconscious and consciousness. jungian psychology has subjected the alchemistic tradition to extensive analysis and views the king less as an image of paternal authority and more as an archetype of higher insight and wisdom.

with that in mind, i think it's easy to understand where i'm headed but i want to add something else. remember jjk 0? geto's plan at the time was to obtain rika so he could use her power and move forward with his plan to annihilate all no-sorcerers. he believed her to be the key to achieve his goal and was willing to risk his own life for it. furthermore, the story is highly based on buddhist concepts and one of the core aspects of jujutsu kaisen is the cycles of suffering the characters are subjected to. in buddhism the goal is to become free of the samsara (continuous cycle of life, death and rebirth), eliminate suffering and achieve nirvana (enlightment). this ties withe the name of the series as kaisen is comprised of the kanji 'kai', meaning cycle, and 'sen', meaning battle, which combined with jujutsu (which means magic/sorcery but contains the word curse) describe the story as an endless battle of curses. and in a sense, the story also repeats itself, between generations and storyline-wise with the events circling back to how it all began. yuuta managed to land a fatal strike on geto once again, but now rika is pointed to be in a direct confrontation with sukuna as the queen of curses. now that i went through all the context needed to understand this, is it possible rika is once again in danger of being taken away? the idea of achieving a state of perfection with the unity between king and queen is quite intriguing. sukuna finally addressing yuuji as a worthy rival because of his unshakable resolve and unbreakable soul, is almost directly implying yuuji to be the one with whom sukuna has his last battle. an ultimate power-up (or the equivalent to), would be veyy cathartic before a final fight where yuuji would have the opportunity to finally go all out and have his well awaited and deserved protagonism (in my eyes, at least).

[piecesofchess]

The main role of clockworks had obviously been for them to fight in the wars for Valencia, but their secondary purpose was to entertain Valencians and act as their servants. They were seen as objects and treated as nothing more.

So when Gazpaccio built Kane and regarded him as family, as his own son, it was seen as strange and impractical. He was using Kane to assist him with toy-making and gain vengeance on others - there really was no need to see and treat him as something more, but Gazpaccio still welcomed and cared for him as his own flesh-and-blood regardless.

One of the influences he (unintentionally) left on Kane was this concept of relationships - as Kane viewed his own creations as his family, just like his father did with him.

[onepieceanimals]

What do I even tag this

[ebmmedia]