#i feel like this one has huge potential

[fluentisonus]

☞ THUS

[a-world-in-grey]

You know, I always headcanoned that once Niflheim got their hands on some photos of the prince and his civilian friend, they absolutely knew that Prompto was an escaped clone. The resemblance to Besithia was obvious, after all. They just didn't bother to do anything with it, since it's not like they need that particular clone and it's not even like Prompto has a sleeper programming.

But in the Spark verse, well. Prompto is a child of an Oracle. And if Glauca is a thing, they might even know about her magic.

Either way, they really want to have her back.

I have been sitting on this ask for awhile, because I love it, but unfortunately the muses are not cooperating with me on it.

In most of my fics, Niflheim doesn’t really bother paying too much attention to Prompto - yeah, he’s the prince’s friend, but he’s civilian, and furthermore, not a member of his Retinue, so ergo, he can’t be that important to the prince. Not enough to be worth investing any resources into whatever aim they might want with Prompto anyway.

But in Spark au, Prompto is claimed as Noctis’ Heart far earlier than normal in an effort to protect her secret, and that makes Niflheim take a closer look at this civilian girl who’s gotten so close to the prince. And you’re right, the resemblance is uncanny if you know what to look for.

I feel like Titus wouldn’t know about Prompto’s magic. Noctis and the others are so very careful to keep her magic under wraps, and the cover of Prompto having Noctis’ magic so compelling, that Titus never realizes the truth.

Now, if they ever managed to get their hands on the Prince’s Heart long enough to somehow learn that carefully hidden truth… well.

That would change things, wouldn’t it?

[moe-broey]

MAN. You ever got like REALLY FUCKING PASSIONATE about A Vision and you feel SO INSANE ABOUT IT and then. Hhh actually don't care. I was like FEVERISH OVER THIS. THOUGHT I WAS SOOOOOO ONTO SOMETHING. But now I just couldn't care less LMFAOOOOO

WELL. Sequence of Events:

> Attempt to find a suitable name for a potential Pokemon trainer OC, thinking of the common naming conventions (flowers/plants, colors)

> Instructions unclear made another Moe.

Loupin. I mean Loupin.

Lifted from the book I was reffing:

Lupinus - Dejection, Imagination, Voraciousness -- to comtemplate upon a wild lupinus is believed by some to present a portal to the fairy world.

Lupinus texensis - Forgiveness, Self-sacrifice, Survival. Specifc colors - Pink, Memories of those who died, Struggle to survive.

Idk the more I look at my sketches the angrier I am it just didn't come out... I don't even know. This isn't even really canon, like I've said before. If Moe stayed in the dream realm it would just be a completely different person. It would be a tragedy. I never wanted to explore it as a possibility.

But then I was just Struck. With SUUUUUCH a strong image. Of, the idea behind all the fairies, that they never had a chance to grow up. I was thinking about pixies and imps. I was thinking of a dream pixie that delivers prankish dreams. The idea, that at first glance, you really Can't tell which realm Loupin is associated with. Then it casts Wake Up and Get Ready For Work dream or You're Out In Public Butt Ass Naked Unable to Find Clothes dream or Totally Safe For Use Toilet I Promise dream. It's...... ultimately harmless...? But COME ON, MAN.

Okay but going back a minute. About the not growing up, detail. That, this version of Moe would be stuck as an eternal child. I was ESPECIALLY thinking about "ideal selves", and that Moe has never seen a future for itself. Even as a child. It could never imagine what it would even look like all grown up. And I was thinking about how each fairy Wishes for something, that's a direct response to their trauma. Ideal Self + Unable to see a future for itself + What it wishes for.

Then I had a BEAUTIFUL. INCREDIBLE VISION. Loupin is a beast unit. OF COURSE MOE'S IDEAL SELF WOULD BE A BEAST UNIT (LIKE. Baby Moe In Particular). Sharp pointy fangs and BIG HUGE CLAWS and strong legs for running and HOOVES. TO KICK AND STOMP YOU TO DEATH WITH. YOU BITCH ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️For extra flair (and speed!), its wings are more dragonfly-like. And a cute little tail............ hell, the way this is going, you don't even gotta introduce it to it/its pronouns it's probably already fucking there. Could also speak to some dehumanization experienced in a previous life but don't worry about that. There's actually plenty of things here you don't gotta worry about. Definitely don't overanalyze the fact that it could never see a future for itself that every day was just survival mode and what it wants for the Most is a way to either defend itself make itself Scary or be really fast.

Godddd okay okay but there's Something. Too. To the fact that this Moe is frozen in time, 12 at absolute oldest. I was aiming for a more androgynous look, too. But for the idealized self to remove anything that it could be sexualized for against its will. Remove everything it has to "protect", add more bells and whistles for protection.

GAAAHH MAYBE. MAYBE. THE PROBLEM. Is I just got too much shit going on LMFAOO and I ALWAYS. REALLY REALLY STRUGGLE W THE FAIRY DESIGNS. BANE OF MY EXISTENCE. I gave up on the color palette halfway LMFAOOO LIKE. This is very much a First first draft. But also, not something I feel too compelled to spend any more time on...? It is just a thought experiment, at its core. Any which way. I do love it... the Idea of Loupin.............. unfortunately if I think too hard about the ramifications of Loupin I will cry and throw up though. No world where this can be canon. SAD❗

[uranium-city]

guys i really hate to say it but Abe's kind of been the highlight of the last two episodes for me & feels most in character to his S1 counterpart when compared to the other main characters 😭

ALSO him & Joan had more genuine chemistry in the one hospital scene than JFK & Joan have had all season & as a member of the JoanFK nation i am frustrated

[mushlyslog]

Finally watched Kung Fu Panda 4, tell me why it unironically changed my life

[xheksprostate]

getting sloppy drunk for the first time on accident: woo! i am going to luxuriate in the todays decadent win of the montreal canadiens, mes habs, over the florida panthers and the fact that our baby rookie baby goalie shut out said defending stanley cup champs! and also think salacious things about sam monty montembeault. olé

[j-esbian]

ok here is my hot voltron take in 2024*

it’s all right. it’s not a masterpiece but that’s ok. it holds up and i still think it’s fun

i feel like it suffered from a lot of factors while it was coming out. the rushed production (76 episodes in just 2 years), fandom expectations exploding and exceeding what the show had ever planned to do, the creators running their mouths and people putting more faith in word of god than what made it into the actual show, etc.

it’s not the pinnacle of television. i think a lot of people had high hopes when it came out; i remember a lot of folks talking about how the people who made it had worked on the last airbender, so they were expecting a similar caliber. i think a better analogy would be that this is a mech anime for western audiences where mech animes aren’t really a thing. but it struggled to deliver on that

i do think the biggest thing it suffered from was the production schedule. i still don’t understand why it was divided up the way it was, into a bunch of small, unevenly distributed seasons. there’s a lot of things that could have been executed better, but didn’t get developed in the way they should have. and the final product (for a lot of the character stuff specifically) feels like a line of tropes strung together rather than a coherent narrative, and the plot had very little thought put into it long-term (there’s almost entire seasons that give no screen time to haggar/honerva and like. maybe we could have spent a bit more time showing her pulling the strings and manipulating zarkon/sendak/etc. rather than Only focusing on them, in the seasons where they’re the villains). this is generally something i associate with things that lasted past their expiration date (like supernatural lol). i would have to look more closely into the development of the later seasons, because it really gives the impression they just had to run with their first thoughts and didn’t have time to flesh things out properly, especially in contrast to the seasons with lotor because they were almost cooking with that

for example, they almost sold me that allura had developed feelings for lance, but then in order to make it clear, they started making her all blushy and awkward around him because That’s A Trope People Understand That Means A Girl Likes A Boy, when that was really never who she was. they reached for it as shorthand to signal to the audience but didn’t really think too deeply about Who they were applying it to. the whole thing with shiro’s partner (and ambiguous autoimmune disease that exists only for one scene) would have been nothing if the creators hadn’t hyped it up so much beforehand, and if a little more time had been given and a little more care had gone into the scenes where that mattered, and if there had been literally any indication of it in the previous 6 seasons. they could have thought about how audiences would interpret pidge’s gender fuckery and done something to address that to avoid accusations of queerbaiting. it just added drama to season 1, they made a bathroom joke in season 2, and then forgot it was ever a plot point. whenever keith is on screen he’s the main character. he has the most developed arc out of any of the paladins (finding his family, becoming a leader, learning to not be such a loner) but again, whole swathes of episodes go by without him. and in his absence no one else really takes the spotlight. it just focuses on plot. hunk doesn’t really get anything to do until season 7, and it’s a very good scene where he’s jealous of lance and pidge for having their families back but it also feels like the first time he’s taken seriously in 60+ episodes. et cetera.

*big caveat that i just finished season 7, and season 8 was where i lost interest and never finished. i know The Big Thing that happened in season 8 and i can see where they were coming from. i’m sure they were thinking about doing a Big Damn Sacrifice and making some statement about the loss of the Old World to give birth to the New. i just don’t think they were mindful of 1) who they were sacrificing or 2) the fact that they were telling this story in the real world, where there’s countless other stories about black women being denied happiness in order to further someone else’s story. i don’t think this show Uniquely Hates Women because it has the same level of sexism that’s present pretty much across the board in modern sci-fi. they didn’t need to shoehorn in the romance but they clearly tried to be more mindful than the original (instead of Zero female paladins, there were two for most of the show.) they definitely had huge blind spots and i’m not excusing that but i do think that doesn’t cancel out everything else. it seems to be due to obliviousness rather than active malice. but again, i have yet to watch the final episodes

[merlinmerlot]

I could play one of the most beautiful well crafted video games on the planet and it will never be as appealing to me as one that kind of sucks shit but has soooo much potential

[teethbomb]

mob psycho(logical horror) 100

[loafbud]

The first Splatoon game turned 8 yesterday!

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

me: i'll just write up a quick post about a couple simple things you could change about sdmi to fix the worst of the talking animal stuff. maybe a little disclaimer at the beginning about the Utopia Problem

me an hour later, 3k words into the post and still writing: ah lads not again

[dunadaan]

I’ve been feeling Créa creep up on me as of late and today I went back and reread my little document where I type up random ideas for scenes/fics and I was like. Wow who wrote this. This is really good. Why isn’t there more of this damn. But also wow I really put miss créa through the blender and she is a fine red mist a lot. But that is the life of a ranger…and even when she’s not a ranger anymore I press blend on high and she is sadly used to that

[tonyglowheart]

reading thru old meta posts on qian qiu and there's like, some stuff I agree with sure but there's also a lot I don't lol. w like yan wushi especially. there's a lot of. I think too much conventional-mindedness in approaching yws even from the ppl who did like him as a character. saying he's a difficult character, and is meant to be a difficult character, but then still framing him along more conventional moral frameworks. yet another apartment 'complex'? strange, I find it quite simple moments.

[aeide-thea]

me like 'what if i, idk, went to a museum in boston or something. wait why are all these museums so expensive, wtf. i feel like museums in nyc didn't cost this much!!'

turns out, museums in nyc do cost that much but the met and the amnh are pay-what-you-want for ny residents without even having to demonstrate need so i got spoiled, lol sigh

[bangcakes]

.

[quantomeno]

I'm actually rather excited for the upcoming election because of the speculation going around that we might end up with a minority government.

People will make a big fuss of minority governments being chaotic or at the whims of the crossbench, but the Gillard government (our last hung parliament) was actually incredibly productive when judged by the amount of legislation it passed, having the highest of any government in our history (obviously one can question the quality of the legislation, but it at least puts paid to the idea minority governments never get anything done).

A Labor-led minority government might actually make some progress in this country, but even a Liberal-Led one might not be as terrible as the stagnant Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison years. It depends on the numbers (if they're only 1 seat short, its impact will be notable smaller), but having to deal with the crossbench (which is currently made up of a lot of environmentally-conscious MPs) should at least make things a little more interesting, regardless of who's in power.

There are a few main reasons why a minority government is expected:

Previous election results:

The previous election had the lowest percentage of first preference votes going to Labor and the Coalition. Labor is in government after only winning ~33% of the national 1st preference vote, and the Coalition ~32%. That is, about 1/3 Australians voted 1 for someone who wasn't Labor or Coalition. This suggests there's a sense of disenchantment with the major parties and people are willing to vote in minor parties or independents. The 2022 election resulted in the largest crossbench in recent history.

2. Low support for Albanese/Labor:

It's been reported that Albos' preferred PM ratings are slipping, making it increasingly likely he'll lose seats and he is already on a wafer-thin majority of only two seats. There's been a large turn against incumbent parties in elections world-wide, which has largely been attributed to high inflation and high interest rates etc, among other things. Labor is in an awkward position: voters will blame them for the cost of living crisis and they will need to convince them that more of the same will fix things. There's also Albanese's perceived lack of action and many progressive voters are rather unimpressed with his middle-of-the-road-don't-rock-the-boat way of running things.

3. The high bar for the Liberals:

While things look bad for the government, it's not all sunshine for Peter Dutton. The Coalition suffered historic losses in some of its prized electorates to the Teal independents and Dutton is not the sort of leader that could ever really win them back. Electoral boundaries have changed, however, for a lot of seats since 2022 and this muddles things a bit, partly due to those low major party preferences I mentioned earlier. For example, Kylea Tink, a 'Teal' (her colour is really pink to rhyme with her name, but she's often grouped with the Teals) has had her electorate divided amongst three others. There are a lot of seats that could change hands and it is quite possible the Coalition will take some seats off Labor, but while Labor only needs to lose two seats to lose majority, the Coalition needs to gain 18 (we lose a seat in parliament due to redistributions, but the minimum majority would still be 76/150). While those aforementioned polls are showing increases in Dutton's favourability, it is still not particularly high (39%, compared to 34% for Albo in one recent poll for preferred PM).

But yeah, a Labor-led minority government would likely be a lot more ambitious in its reform goals and I am quietly optimistic about that being the results of this election. So if there was ever a time to not put a major party first, it's now.